While U.S. lawmakers mull health care reform in the nation's capital, another important question is nagging at various biotech capitals from coast to coast: Who will finance new drug development? Venture capital has been the lifeblood of biotech startups and their new technologies. But in the current difficult economic climate, VC money has largely dried up. Now some industry watchers are concerned that an overly aggressive health care bill may erode drug prices, squeeze profitability, and make it even harder to lure VC money to biotech. As it ...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Social networking Internet service LinkedIn said on Wednesday that interim President Jeff Weiner will take over as chief executive officer, six months after the company's co-founder stepped into the role. Co-founder Reid Hoffman will remain executive chairman of the company, whose website focuses on professional networking and career-building. LinkedIn also said it expects to be profitable in 2009, as it was in 2008, and that its number of global members recently exceeded 42 million. LinkedIn has raised more than $100 million in funding from backers which ...

The economy is forcing venture capital firms to spend more money with longtime holdings, making it harder for younger outfits to get a declining pool of venture funds. That's one finding in a global poll of 775 venture capital firms by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu and the National Venture Capital Association set to be released Wednesday. The poll seeks to get a sense of what venture capitalists are thinking. The new poll — the 2009 Global Venture Survey — found that most venture firms expect to invest in fewer companies for at ...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Pioneering guitarist Bob Bogle, whose rock-instrumental band the Ventures scored a pair of hits in the 1960s with "Walk, Don't Run" and "Hawaii Five-O," has died, the group said on Tuesday. He was 75. Bogle died on Sunday of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma at a hospital after falling ill at his home in Vancouver, Washington, according to bandmate Don Wilson. The Ventures were "the most popular instrumental rock 'n' roll band of all time" and are worshiped as "gods" in Japan, rocker John Fogerty said at the ...