Despite the seesaw-like volatility that characterized the fourth quarter of 2018, particularly December, venture capital-backed biopharma companies had a banner year.
The fourth quarter and the year as a whole saw biopharma play a dominant role in dealmaking and the largest-ever biotech IPO, noted a report by PitchBook.
While dealmaking overall was down significantly from 2015 and down slightly from 2017, biopharma – along with software – dominated it, accounting for more than 6,000 venture capital deals last year. It was also one of the few sectors to see an increase in deal count over 2017, with slight upticks since 2015 and significant increases through 2014.
Moderna Therapeutics scored the largest ever biotechnology IPO, when on Dec. 7 it announced that the pricing of its offering was $604.3 million, having initially sought to raise $500 million. Still, the company’s stock has since declined significantly as investors reportedly feared its valuation was too high.
The numbers dovetail with the findings of Silicon Valley Bank, whose 2019 healthcare report found that in the US and Europe, investments increased by 50 percent over 2017, while fundraising beat the 2017 record by reaching $9.6 billion. Biopharma led activity in the sector, with the $16 billion in investments representing double what they were in 2017.
And when it comes to biopharma dealmaking overall, things haven’t slowed down in 2019.
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.
The year started off with Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Jan. 2 acquisition of Celgene for $74 billion, followed by Eli Lilly & Co.’s acquisition of Loxo Oncology for $8 billion, announced the first morning of the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco.
In a breakout session at JPM, Lilly CEO David Ricks said conditions in 2019 were “ripe” for an uptick in mergers and acquisitions, with CFO Joshua Smiley saying the company would have capacity to do a transaction every quarter. That appears consistent with SVB’s forecast for the year, which includes an expected increase in biopharma mergers and acquisitions as market uncertainty could drag down IPOs. Investors at JPM agreed, foreseeing more biotech companies becoming targets for acquisition this year, in addition to the possibility for more large deals.
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