Winners' Circle: New Insights Into BioPharma Venture Returns
Successful deals in venture capital take on a life of their own, especially the rare massive outlier return. Unfortunately for venture capitalists, Facebooks and Twitters are very rare. Understanding...
View ArticleWhat's Behind The Booming Biotech IPO Market
Biotech is back with a vengeance in this IPO window. After a decade drought, we’ve witnessed over 30 new biotech offerings this year and more than $2.5B raised - the best IPO market since 2000. In...
View ArticleInsider Participation Drops As Biotech Offerings Up
As you might expect given the strong IPO market, biotech venture investors are doing less of the heavy lifting in support of their portfolio companies during this receptive climate than in the past few...
View ArticleVCs: Adding Or Subtracting Value To Biotech Startups?
Last month legendary investor Vinod Khosla commented that 95% of VCs add “zero value” and 80% probably “add negative value” in how they advise startup companies in their portfolio. This is a stunning...
View ArticleBlogging on Biotech: Reflections And A 'Best of' List
For the past 2.5 years I’ve been experimenting with this blog, covering topics about biotech startups, the pharma industry, and venture capital - so I thought it would be a good time for reflection. In...
View ArticleBiotech IPOs: The Exit Challenge As Lockups Expire
Six months ago the biotech industry was on the verge of a sizzling season for IPOs, and since then, on average, we’ve seen one new biotech IPO per week. Valuations of many of these offerings have been...
View ArticleScience Being Studied: Replication, Publication, And Resource Allocation
Scientific reproducibility hit mainstream this month with a feature article and editorial in The Economist; they highlight issues around the failure to replicate peer-reviewed research, academic biases...
View ArticleCorrelation's Fresh Look At Venture Capital Returns
The broad underperformance of the venture capital asset class during the past decade is widely discussed; there’s a frequently cited assertion that U.S. venture returns trailed the overall public...
View ArticleCrowdfunding: Angels In Biotech, Or Devil In The Details?
In the tech-dominated venture capital world, 2013 could be called the year of the crowd. With the JOBS Act and the emergence of credible platforms like AngelList, crowdfunding has come into the...
View Article2013's Untold Biotech Story: Success Of The 2011-12 IPO Class
The past year has certainly been the most exciting one for Biotech IPOs since 2000, with dozens of new offerings and compelling therapeutic narratives. But focusing on these new IPOs misses an equal...
View ArticlePerspectives On VC-Backed Biotech: Looking Backward & Forward
Tis the season for reflecting and predicting, so I figured I'd follow the custom and share some of my thoughts about the state of biotech in 2013 and the year to come. Reflections on 2013. The Biotech...
View ArticleThe Arteaus Therapeutics Story: R&D Externalization with Eli Lilly
Today, we are excited to announce that we’ve successfully exited Arteaus Therapeutics to Eli Lilly (see announcement here, here). It’s fair to say it’s been a superbly executed example of R&D...
View ArticleZafgen Opens A New Front In Its Obesity Strategy: Prader-Willi Syndrome
Today Zafgen announced its initial results from proof-of-concept study in patients with an obesity-related orphan disease called Prader-Willi Syndrome (PWS). The news was also covered by Andrew Pollack...
View ArticleJPM 2014: Broad Optimism About Biotech Innovation
The annual biotech pilgrimage to San Francisco has come to an end, and the upbeat, optimistic sentiment from #JPM14 bodes well as a barometer of the healthcare industry. Amidst the presentations and...
View ArticleBiotech M&A: Steadily Delivering Returns In 2013
While all eyes have been on the raging IPO market in biotech over the past year, the private biotech M&A market has continued its fourth straight year of impressive results. Yesterday, HBM Partners...
View ArticleBiotech IPO Returns: Great, Good, And Not So Good
The biotech IPO bonanza appears to be continuing into 2014, with over thirteen offerings already this year. We're just now completing the busiest two week period in biotech IPOs ever. Another dozen...
View ArticleUnlocking The Promise Of Biotech Startups: Learnings From Mars, Goliath, and...
As an early stage biotech investor, the future of the industry and its structure are clearly important things to think about – especially since most of the drug programs our new startups are working on...
View ArticleTransformational Late Stage Drugs Delivered Through Deal-Making
Today’s biopharma industry has a richer and more exciting late stage pipeline of compelling new therapeutics than its had in years, drawing lots of enthusiasm from analysts and investors. Goldman...
View ArticleTradeoffs and Timing: IPO vs. M&A Decision-Making In Biotech
In light of the continued interest in biotech IPOs by the capital markets, there’s probably not a venture-backed biotech boardroom that hasn’t been discussing the merits of going public. Whether...
View ArticlePushing Forward With Collaborative R&D Models In Biotech: Roche-Spero And...
With today’s announcement of Roche’s deal with Spero Therapeutics LLC (here), and last month’s news regarding Biogen’s deal with Ataxion (here), we’ve added further momentum to our strategy of working...
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