Merlin's Consolidation Wizardry

While America weathers its biotech ice age, Europe still enjoys a biotech spring. Start-ups continue to sprout—particularly in Germany, but in France and England as well. Germany still subsidizes private investors in start-ups, at what is sometimes better than a two-to-one basis (see "Germany's Biotech Boomlet,"START-UP, February 1998). The British national and local governments promote, with significant funding, tech transfer from university to start-up with "university challenges" and "enterprise challenges."

But if there is plenty of start-up capital, says Chris Evans, the founder and chairman of Merlin Biosciences and founder...