A ground breaking study on venture financing for drugs that treat disease was recently released by the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO). The study focused on a ten year period from 2004 to 2013, and analyzed data from Thomson Reuters, BioCentury, Elsevier, and Evaluate Pharm. The goals of the study were to investigate investor trends in the drug market, and identify diseases that may be struggling for early-stage venture equity financing.
The study found that seventy-eight percent of U.S. venture investments went toward R&D, which suggests that innovation is a main priority for venture investors. However, after the financial crisis in 2008, total venture funding of R&D dropped twenty-one percent, from $21.5 billion to $16.7 billion. Additionally, diseases such as diabetes, respiratory, and cardiovascular, which affect large populations, have seen a decline in R&D venture funding. On the other hand, rare disease funding has largely increased over the past decade.
-Since venture financing is the lifeblood of our industry, we wanted to better understand trends in venture financing over the last decade by conducting the broadest, most comprehensive study possible,- said Esham. -The aim was to identify funding trends for emerging drug developers within specific therapeutic areas and across varying levels of innovation.-
The study focused on $38 billion of venture capital in over 1,200 U.S. drug companies. These companies have received over 2,000 rounds of funding in the ten years of the study.
The BIO Industry Analysis team released the study findings at the 2015 BIO CEO & Investor Conference, taking place February 9-10 in New York City. Conference attendees will have early access to the full report, including presentation of the data and a panel discussion with seasoned venture capitalists.
The latest content from BIO Industry Analysis can be found at http://biotech-now.org. For more information on BIO and the biotechnology industry, visit http://www.bio.org.
