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China’s Biotech Future

China's Biotech Future

Continuing our interview series with life sciences venture capitalists to accompany a study on venture capital in emerging markets published in the March 7th, 2013, issue of Nature Biotechnology, we return to China. Our third interview is with a venture capitalist, who wishes to remain anonymous, from the one of the most prolific early-stage life sciences investors in China (14 innovation-focused investments to date). Previous posts are here and here.  Read more

Not Invented Here

Not Invented Here

Business development professionals have long complained about the difficulty in convincing Big Pharma research groups that a new project from outside their company  is worthy of consideration.  This is called Not Invented Here (NIH) syndrome and, when displayed by pharma, is characterized by skepticism of novel ideas, a focus on data gaps rather than an assessment of the data that exist, and an unwillingness to abandon internal projects even if corporate portfolio valuation standards favor the external project.  Read more

Insights from India

Insights from India

Continuing our interview series with life sciences venture capitalists (here for previous post) to accompany a study on venture capital in emerging markets published in the March 7th, 2013, issue of Nature Biotechnology, we turn our eye to India. Our second interview is with Aditya Kapil, who was a principal at VentureEast at the time of our interview in 2012.  Read more

Life Science Venture Capital in Emerging Markets: a View on China

Life Science Venture Capital in Emerging Markets: a View on China

As part of a study on venture capital in emerging markets published in the March 7th, 2013, issue of Nature Biotechnology, my colleagues and I interviewed several life sciences venture capitalists operating in emerging markets. In the coming weeks, we will be sharing some of the insights from these investors here on Trade Secrets.  Read more

More on the Shelf

More on the Shelf

In my last post, I wrote about shelf registration filings among small cap biotech companies. I defined a small cap biotech company as one engaged in drug development with a market capitalization of less than $1 billion. Often referred to by their SEC form designation, S-3, shelf registrations are prospectuses that allow companies to issue securities at any time within three years of the date of filing. Data from the past four years, specifically second quarter of 2010 to second quarter 2012, revealed that approximately 1/3 of US small cap biotechs use S-3 shelf registrations. Of those, however, around 80% of shelf-filing companies subsequently employ them, i.e., sell securities and raise additional capital, though the timing and the size of the first financing varies considerably. Thus, a company’s decision to put a shelf in place does indeed foreshadow a likely future financing, usually within six months.  Read more

The S-3 Barometer

The S-3 Barometer

Access to capital is essential for development-stage biotechs, yet the capital markets for public and private biotech companies are notoriously fragile. For private companies, venture investing in the life sciences has recovered from a rough patch in the ’08-’09 span to the robust financing environment in last year and a half. In the public markets, IPOs haven’t fully rebounded to historical levels, but follow-on financings and debt deals have been brisk as the biotech sector has performed extraordinarily well in 2012. Indeed, the NASDQ biotech index is up ~35% YTD at the end of the third quarter.  Read more

Non-Dilutive Financing for Biotech Startups

Non-Dilutive Financing for Biotech Startups

In a series of posts we introduced the Leverage Startup and how non-dilutive sources of capital can be used to accelerate the commercialization of academic biotech projects.  In this post we discuss the use and sources of non-dilutive financing in biotech startups.  Read more

BIO 2012: Development cost comparison, China vs. US

BIO 2012: Development cost comparison, China vs. US

I attended BIO this year, and while there I felt responsible for China as a Trade Secrets contributor, so I settled in at “The China Day” – a day-long program organized around China, and was happy to take down some interesting numbers from the morning session.  Read more

The ‘Enemy’ Report

The 'Enemy' Report

Earlier this month the Kauffman Foundation released an in-depth analysis of its own investing in ~100 venture capital funds (VC) over some 20 years. The report is not specific to the life sciences, but that hardly matters in this case, partially because investing in tech and/or biotech carries certain similarities, and partially because it’s a fascinating read anyway.  Read more