EU environment ministers dealt a blow to efforts to get more GMO crops grown in Europe as they agreed to uphold eight national bans on genetically modified maize and rapeseed types.

Having just returned from eight days in China, I have seen the future. At least that's what I believe after spending time with the excited emerging entrepreneurial class there. IDG Ventures has a significant venture portfolio in China, and has invested in that country for nearly 15 years. That market has undergone numerous boom-and-bust cycles, but on my most recent trip it felt as if things were now fundamentally different.

The US government has launched a new web site about biotech crops as part of a special taxpayer-funded project to promote such crops worldwide -- a move criticised by some consumer and farm groups.

The US is bearing a disproportionate share of drug R&D costs for medicines used globally at the same time that price controls in other industrialised nations are leading more US residents to obtain unregulated drugs elsewhere, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner (FDA) Dr Mark McClellan has claimed.

The European Union's top court has ruled that Italy had the right to ban genetically modified maize that was allowed for use in the EU if it had solid grounds to suspect it posed a health risk.