Israeli start-up Pharma Two B has taken the concept of synergism seriously, from the eclectic group of scientists and managers it has brought together under one roof, to its fixed-dose combination strategy of drug development, to the approval pathway it plans to seek in gaining the US FDA's OK – 505 (b)(2), a hybrid route to approval that is increasingly growing more popular in the US because of the costs saved and time reduced in getting medicines to the marketplace.

Where potential approaches to drug discovery are concerned, ubiquitylation might not be the first word that springs to mind. But if recent developments are anything to go by, this biological process is becoming, if not ubiquitous, at least increasingly attractive as a route to novel drug design.

Israeli biotech is hot -- lots of ideas and lots of entrepreneurs. But the industry is chronically short of management and venture money. For the latter, companies have turned to Israel's recently deregulated stock market.