PwC anticipates a streamlining of the FDA approval process could address asset scarcity. AbbVie begins 2017 with three modest-sized deals, while PharmAthene and Altimmune join forces in a reverse-merger.

Start-ups raised $1.8 billion in Q1 2016. Biopharma companies penned 33 alliances; 14 acquisitions were signed (11 in the biopharma industry).

Derived from Strategic Transactions, Informa’s premium source for tracking life sciences deal activity, the Tech Transfer Deals column provides a monthly review of licensing agreements between companies and universities or other research institutions in the In Vitro Diagnostics, Medical Device, and Pharmaceutical sectors. This month’s column covers deals announced February through March 2016.

Orthopedic biomaterials and drug-eluting stents are only the first hint at the potentially transforming nature of combination products: device/biologic combination products that may bring a revolution to clinical therapy and to the device industry. In vascular medicine, catheter-based delivery of cardiac gene therapy may become a significant advance, yet with scant clinical evidence of efficacy and only anecdotal physician experience using catheter delivery systems, the field remains all promise. Many device executives think they see a path emerging, largely due to fundamental changes in the dynamics of their industry that are moving device business models closer to that of their pharma industry cousins.