The drug delivery device industry is on track to reach almost $23 billion by the year 2011, and the fastest growth will come from the transdermal sector. According to a recent Windhover Information/Medtech Insight report, transdermal delivery technologies will build up to sales of $4.6 billion by 2011. Pharma's increasing fondness for macromolecules will fuel that growth, as will the perennially hot market for transdermal formulations of pain drugs.

Transdermal drug delivery has come a long way since the first patch for seasickness. In a drug delivery device industry on track to reach almost $23 billion by the year 2011 (according to "US Markets for Drug and Fluid Delivery Devices," published in October 2007 by Windhover Information's Medtech Insight division) the transdermal sector will grow at a faster rate than injection or inhalation drug delivery systems. Transdermal delivery technologies will grow at a compound annual rate of more than 11% over the next four years, building up to sales of $3.5 billion in the year 2011.

Two of Europe's handful of IPOs this season are struggling to stay afloat. Bankruptcies continue among private German biotechs. Yet VCs have more money than ever and two of the European biotech flotations were the second- and third-largest globally during this window. What do Europe's biotechs need to do in this new, cautious and contradictory era in order to raise private funds and survive on the open markets? In Vivo Europe Rx asked three top leading European financiers.