Our monthly update on technology transfer deals--licensing agreements between companies and universities or other research institutions--in the fields of life sciences, including in vitro diagnostics, pharmaceuticals, research/analytical equipment & supplies, and medical devices.

The convergence of advancing technology and the push for more effective, noninvasive cancer treatments is helping to build the perfect storm of innovation for the field of stereotactic radiosurgery. SRS allows high doses of precisely focused ablative energy to be delivered to targeted tissues with a minimum of damage to surrounding areas. It has been used for years to treat tumors in the head and neck, where patient movement can be effectively restrained with frames to protect healthy tissue. However, technological advances are now making the procedure more viable for tumors in other parts of the body, and that opens the door to treating cancers in the lung, prostate, breast, and beyond.

Past failures guide start-ups that seek to develop drugs for this silent epidemic, but will investors follow?

The big deals in other therapeutic areas focus on novel molecules, in neurology, most focus on formulations of existing molecules. There just hasn't been a lot of novel material that's piqued the interest of licensees, at least in part because of the risk of developing novel neurology compounds. But as Windhover's Therapeutic Alliances: Neuroscience conference showed, much of the new, licensable pipeline is very novel indeed.