DuPont's Combi combination

For platform companies, a key in attracting investors, partners or acquirers is the ability to offer value-added aspects that differentiate one's technology from the competition. For example, DuPont Pharmaceuticals' decision to acquire CombiChem Inc. last week for $95 million in cash was not solely for the biotech company's combinatorial chemistry technology, which DuPont could have licensed from a number of companies, but for CCHM's synthesis of combinatorial chemistry and computational software.

"The marriage of these two technologies allows for the generation of a diverse set of molecules and the ability to then predict which compounds will be the best therapeutic targets," said Bob Stein, executive vice president of research and preclinical development at DuPont. "This reduces both a product's development timeline and the number of medicinal chemists required for a particular project," thus allowing the researchers to pursue additional projects...