Biopure: The 2009 Biotech Graveyard

Company: Biopure
Based: Cambridge, MA

What went wrong: Biopure is one of the two blood product companies to make this year's Graveyard list. The developer struggled for years to develop its blood substitute Hemopure, which had many advantages to human blood but was never able to satisfy the FDA's safety concerns. The company went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy and, after a sale of its assets OPK Biotech, officially folded in August.