During all of last year there were only 11 biotech IPOs. But even that weak number looked pretty good compared to the barren years leading away from the 2008 financial crisis. In the last 6 months, though, the industry has seen a tremendous rebound, with almost twice that number of IPOs in half the time. And there’s no sign that the great leap into the public market is waning, with 10 more IPOs in the queue.
Add it all up, and the biotechs that went public in the first half of the year raised close to $1.4 billion–which is particularly impressive if you consider that it represents a stream of cash that had all but dried up in recent years. New money flowing into biotech means more R&D projects, more researchers and more contracting. It’s even more impressive once you look at the hot stocks like bluebird bio ($BLUE), which saw its shares soar 55% by the end of the first half, or Chimerix ($CMRX), up 73%.
— excerpted from John Carroll’s perceptive article “The Biotech IPO Scene Turns Red Hot” at FierceBiotech.
