Infectious ambition

Judging from last week's M&A activity - with Crucell N.V. buying Berna Biotech Ltd., and Pharmexa A/S and BioVertis AG acquiring anti-infective assets from IDM Pharma Inc. and Morphochem AG, respectively - it is clear that European biotech companies are intent on becoming global leaders in infectious diseases.

Indeed, European companies both large and small already figure strongly on the anti-infectives landscape, with a number of them developing responses to emerging diseases, bioterrorism and pandemic influenza. Thus, in pandemic flu, emerging diseases such as West Nile, Ebola, Japanese encephalitis and efforts to protect against weaponized viruses, much of the effort is being made by Europeans such as Acambis plc, Bavarian Nordic A/S, Crucell, Intercell AG, Emergent Europe Ltd. and PowderMed Ltd., as well as the likes of GlaxoSmithKline plc (LSE:GSK; GSK, London, U.K.), Novartis AG (NVS; SWX:NOVN, Basel, Switzerland) and sanofi-aventis Group (Euronext:SAN; SNY, Paris, France)...