Celladon

San Diego-based Celladon has made a big splash in the U.K. British scientists are playing a prominent role in a pair of clinical trials of Celladon's Mydicar, a gene therapy for heart failure which uses a benign virus to insert the Serca2a gene into heart cells.

Now, more than ever, the life sciences industry is all about innovative and disruptive technologies. Every year for the past decade, FierceBiotech has made its picks on which companies hold the best odds for success in our Fierce 15 report . This year, though, we've added another Fierce 15 to focus on medical devices and diagnostics. I'd like to encourage readers to consider the differences by comparing the companies in each report.

Nick Leschly, the CEO of Bluebird Bio, playfully dubbed the ambitious spirit of biotechs Levin Syndrome, a fictional affliction named after Third Rock Ventures' Mark Levin that compels biotech entrepreneurs to, as they say, go big or go home. Our Fierce 15 companies are all "going big." They also went home… with trophies. Check out the slideshow below.

There's more than one way to build a biotech company. And this year's Fierce 15 companies reflect a range of companies operating with a spectrum of business models. Here's the full report >>   Click here to view a video of FierceBiotech Editor John Carroll announcing the Fierce 15 at BioPharm America >>