Annual check-up: consolidation leaves a few, but promising, pure-play companies.(Women's Health Care)

In the late 1990 Wall public way was abuzz about women's healthcare. Biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies big and small were touting novel diagnostic and therapeutic procedures for cervical and breast cancers, reproductive complications, menopausal scalding;-very warm flashes and other uniquely female medical vexed questions In 1996 alone, six stocks in the field had initial public offerings (IPO), and by means of the end of the decade magazines from Fortune to fresh York were hyping the "enormous expansion potential" of this still-budding industry.

"There aren't real many of these companies