Archive by category | Finance

Analyzing Global Biotech Investing Over Time

Analyzing Global Biotech Investing Over Time

Where are venture funds being deployed in biotech? Is this changing? As part of a programme to find out how VC interacts with biotech, I have created a database of venture investment in 33 countries and three regions of the USA, over the time periods before, during and after the financial crisis of 2008-11, and built this into an interactive map of the biotech VC world. The map is clickable, with data for each country linked to that country on the map. The link to the map is here.  Read more

Biotech investment panorama in Chile

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The “Chilecon Valley” bubble is a weird one. Four years ago, people wrinkled their nose at you when you called yourself an entrepreneur. Today, they treat you like a rockstar and maybe even throw money at your face – especially if you’re a foreign entrepreneur coming to the country. There is an oversupply of tools, help and attention directed at entrepreneurs in Chile just now, which should seem like good news. The bad news? We are getting far too comfortable with all these entities babying us, and once the bubble bursts (if indeed it does) we will be left with nothing – because we have not built any sustainable structure.  Read more

BIO 2015 in Philly

BIO 2015 in Philly

The Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) International Convention begins next week in Philadelphia. Running from June 15-18 this year, the conference is historically the industry’s largest gathering. The last time Philly played host (2005), the conference was slightly larger than today’s expected version, with more than 18,000 attendees. There were also more protesters than we see today – enough, in fact, for a group to clash with police, leading to, somewhat indirectly, the death of a cop.  Read more

Annual private biotech feature

Annual private biotech feature

2014 was a great year for private biotech. Venture capital (VC) investment into the biotech sector as a whole—from recent startups all the way to enterprises in late-stage financings—jumped to a record $9 billion. The number of series A financing rounds also remained strong. These trends held true for the subset of private companies that Nature Biotechnology considers in its annual survey. Data from Dow Jones show that money from combined exits (initial public offerings [IPOs] and buyouts) for private investors reached mythic levels last year—a 78% increase over an already strong 2013. Although the number of overall VC rounds into innovative biotech did not expand from 2013’s totals, the total amount invested did, and the global count of private biotech companies jumped from 1,133 in early 2013 to 1,361 as 2014 began.  Read more

National Financing tools for Entrepreneurship in Argentina, che!

National Financing tools for Entrepreneurship in Argentina, che!

Argentina created the Ministry of Science, Technology and Productive Innovation in December 2007, with the principal goal of generating greater social inclusion and improving the competitiveness of the Argentinian economy. The current government has developed a specific National Plan of Science, Technology and Innovation for 2020. This one aims at boosting inclusive and sustainable innovation, by fully using Argentinian scientific and technological capabilities, thereby hopefully increasing economic competitiveness and improving quality of life. The strategic areas for this broad plan include biotechnology, nanotechnology, and information & communication technologies. As regards to biotechnology, a special focus is on development of agrobiotechnology, due to its relevance in economic policy (this was mentioned in my last post). Other sub-areas include health, energy and social development.  Read more

Straight from Russia

Straight from Russia

Happy New Year to everybody reading my first post on Trade Secrets! 2013 was a successful, rewarding and promising year for many of us in biotech. In particular, it was another year of a double-digit growth in Russia. Russia’s healthcare market is expected to reach US$100 billion in 2014 with over US$30 billion spent on pharmaceuticals. This is being driven by a growing economy, as well as both foreign and local private investments, and increasing support from the Russian government. Major Big Pharma players have realized the potential in Russia and collectively have recently announced their plans to invest over US$1 billion into manufacturing facilities (the group includes Novartis, AstraZeneca, Novo Nordisk, and Takeda) and to seek partnerships here.  Read more

Predicting Investment Appeal

Predicting Investment Appeal

Innovation in biotechnology depends on many things, especially capital. The question is: What can a country do to increase its odds of becoming a go-to country for biotech investors? A recent analysis reveals that the 2013 Scientific American Worldview can be of help to countries looking to increase their appeal to investors.  Read more

Innovative Financing for Cancer R&D

Innovative Financing for Cancer R&D

Over the past week, we have seen extended press coverage of the principles of a potential cancer ‘megafund,’ building on ideas from the October 2012 Nature Biotechnology article by Fernandez, Stein & Lo on “Commercialization biomedical research through securitization techniques.”  The Economist covered it here and the Financial Times added its commentary here.  Read more