Strategic Alliances Deemed Crucial To Neuroscience Firms' Success

Analysts warn that good marketing and sound financing are as key to survival for new ventures as top-notch science

ST. LOUIS--After 20 years of vigorous scientific growth, neuroscience has vacated the biotechnology umbrella to emerge as a promising industry of its own. With an annual United States market of $4.4 billion in sales, neuropharmaceuticals is one area of biotechnology in which investors are always looking for a great deal. About two dozen startups are pursuing new technologies for diagnosing and treating the nervous system. But each needs substantial backing from either venture capitalists or corporate partners to survive on the long road to bringing products to market. Some of these companies may have a hard time landing that funding; the others probably won't.

This tenuous position was illustrated here last fall in the space of a few hours and about a city block. When biologist J. Leslie Glick described his...