When Esperion's ex-VP chemistry and technologies Jean-Louis Dasseux, PhD co-founded Cerenis Therapeutics in March 2005, he was doubtless inspired partly by Esperion's $1.25 billion sale to Pfizer in December 2003. So were a handful of top-notch VCs including Sofinnova Partners and HealthCap (a previous investor in Esperion), who poured in €25 million ($30.5 million) in August 2005.

Often started by the academic inventors or their laboratory acolytes, biotechs offer equity participations (to universities and researchers) as well as focused attention to their inventions. As large companies have steadily invested in and improved their own discovery operations, in particular going further into the basic research which is the stuff of academic labs, they find themselves positioned to exploit university research in a more focused way-and thus are more willing than ever to do universi