Angels and high net-worth individuals are making up a growing investment base for North Carolina’s startup sector – an interesting trend that shows that venture dollars are losing their pull in the funding game.
The life sciences sector raised about $253 million in 2014 from 35 companies, just behind the state’s tech startups, which raised $278 million, according to a new report from CED, North Carolina’s entrepreneurial trade organization. This is down from last year, though – the North Carolina life sciences sector brought in $275 million in 2013.
Undisclosed investors participated in 65 percent of these funding deals, CED president Joan Siefert Rose, said. Talking details at this week’s CED Life Sciences conference, she said these undisclosed investors are likely chasing a three-to-five year exit plan, which suggests they’re most likely to throw their dollars toward tech, medical device and diagnostics companies.
Behavioral Health, Interoperability and eConsent: Meeting the Demands of CMS Final Rule Compliance
In a webinar on April 16 at 1pm ET, Aneesh Chopra will moderate a discussion with executives from DocuSign, Velatura, and behavioral health providers on eConsent, health information exchange and compliance with the CMS Final Rule on interoperability.
“There’s been an uptick in undisclosed investors, and growth in syndicated angel investor funds,” Rose said.
Notably, the majority of investment dollars come from outside North Carolina, with a huge chunk in California – though this includes tech deals with Silicon Valley.
The biggest life sciences deal of the year was Viamet Pharmaceuticals, which raised a $60 million Series D after withdrawing its plans to IPO. There have been a few notable M&A deals in the past year as well – Furiex Pharmaceuticals was acquired by Forest Laboratories for $1.5 billion; Aerial BioPharma was acquired by Jazz Pharmaceuticals for $397 million; and Chelsea Therapeutics was acquired by Lundbeck for $658 million.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
