Device Investors Look for Gains in Pain

Venture capitalists have endured their fair share of pain over recent years, at least in a financial sense. But their discomfort completely pales in comparison to those millions of people across the globe who must endure the misery of chronic pain or suffer from the side effects of the drugs they take to relieve it. So it's fitting that venture device investors might find relief from their own fiscal and regulatory misery by investing in companies that someday might help those people forced to life with the real thing.

Venture capitalists clearly see huge potential. In the past year, according to Elsevier's Strategic Transactions, 20 pharmaceutical companies and seven medical device companies with products that promise some pain relief...