In the current economic gloom, it is very tempting to write another run-of-the-mill article about how the credit crisis is affecting the pharmaceutical industry and the healthcare domain as a whole. However, since those issues have been covered and belabored threadbare in most other journals, this article will focus on some of the other interesting things that are happening in the industry.

Increasing costs, a limited drug pipeline and the impeding loss of patent coverage for ‘blockbuster’ drugs are changing the landscape of pharmaceutical science. Certain business strategies will need to be employed to overcome these challenges.

Several procedures such as culture techniques, Immunoassays/Serology and Fluorescent In Situ Hybridisation (FISH) have been used to detect disease agents for many years. However amplification technologies such as polymerase chain reaction (PCR) have been shown to be very popular amongst end users and are creating a great amount of interest in the market place.

Results from a recent study, aimed at testing the hypothesis that migrations within historical times could have contributed to the Y-chromosomal (male) genetic diversity in modern day Lebanon, have revealed the legacies left behind by these travellers.