A short summary of recent clinical and market developments in the medical device industry.

An example of the looming power of synthetic biology, one of its first start-ups, Codon Devices, is providing researchers with hundreds of specified protein variants using automated, microarray-based fabrication methods. Its platform could help address pharma's productivity problem by decreasing the size of a discovery pipeline and shrinking the development timeline, and position the company to negotiate downstream payments for its efforts based on the success of clients' development programs.

A better understanding of heme trafficking could lead to drug targets in metabolic diseases, anemias, porphyrias, hemolytic diseases such as sickle cell disease – even parasitic infections.