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Battle lines are drawn in an expensive, distracting and unedifying legal fight between two vaccine manufacturers. Nuala Moran investigates.

Six volunteers are in intensive care after a U.K. trial of an antibody treatment for leukaemia went horribly wrong, raising a raft of questions about drug testing.

Friedrich Bornikoel, managing partner for TVM Capital's Information & Communications Technology group, sees a recovery in German venture capital - but still no boom.

Tectonic shifts in the patent landscape could follow on from high-profile lawsuits challenging what can be protected by a patent and how patents are enforced that are due to be heard by the US Supreme Court this month.

The competition to lure biotech investors and know-how is heating up in US states - and so are the legal battles between over fair and unfair incentives.

Retina Implant AG has developed an electronic chip that is implanted in the eye under the retina and could restore partial vision for the blind – and is now looking for funding from investors to take the product to the market next year.

Europe's aversion to GM crops has killed investors' appetites for agricultural research. Even in the UK, historically a world leader in this field, it is almost impossible to commercialise agricultural biotechnology of any kind.

BioXell, an Italian spin-out from Roche, said it has raised €10.5 million in funding from an extension of its Series C round which was first closed in October, 2004. TVM Capital, one of Germany’s biggest venture capital funds, led the financing.

Look out for more competition from Asia as Singapore turns on the pressure with its own increase in R&D spending.

The notion of grid computing is seeping out of the academic world into business applications.

Save energy, cool your seat.

We stray from the usual stuff of R&D to report on a development that will doubtless appeal to those sad souls who are preparing for World Cup fever.

The OECD has come up with a report that spells out a new "agreed set of Guidelines for the Licensing of Genetic Inventions used in healthcare".

On March 7 in Paris, we open our Science|Business Roundtable of leaders in European industry and academia, to debate and propose new ideas to improve the climate for innovation in Europe. One immediate suggestion is that Europeans do better at communications.