Perhaps it's the sweet California air, but the pervasive (though not universal) pessimism in biopharma these days is really bumming me out.  Consequently, I'd like to discuss three potential responses to difficult industry problems.

The crisis in financing is having a chilling effect on biomedical innovation. As discussed in my last column, the main problem in our industry is that the sheer cost of drug development has become almost prohibitively expensive, effectively pricing almost everyone but the largest companies out of the market.

A vigorous entrepreneurial spirit was apparent at a translational research innovation symposium at Duke University--a determination to do something outside the usual academic practice.

Al Qaeda is counting on sapping our will and persuading America to choose to lose a war it could win.

By comparing Iraq to Vietnam, many people are expressing the fear that because America lost one and because of certain superficial similarities, the U.S. is on the road to losing the other.

Despite government efforts to contain it, Chinese villagers are using "village democracy" to gain the skills and mores of democratic, self-governing people.

If Proposition 71(a state initiative to fund stem-cell research)passes, cash-strapped California taxpayers will be spending their money on a handful of second-rate biotech companies.

How to think about America's private equity industry--and about entrepreneurship and taxes.