It is believed that maggot therapy can potentially save the NHS a great deal of cash by cutting the length of hospital stays, and substantially reducing the number of expensive dressings used.

BBC: Patients wanted for maggots trial

Conscious that it needed a drug pipeline to survive as a drug company, Bayer has made deals with cutting-edge firms like genomics leaders Curagen and Millennium Pharmaceuticals , as well Avigen , a gene therapy company, and Lion Bioscience , a biotech computing company.

FORBES: Bayer's Bitter Pill