Funding for private biotech companies in Europe declines 17% during 2011, while funding for public biotech companies falls 50%, although 2012 starts strongly.
Total funds raised by private biotechs in Europe fell to $831 million in 2011, down 17% compared with 2010, according to Elsevier’s Strategic Transactions database, as the region’s sovereign debt and currency crises compounded ongoing global financial uncertainty to depress sentiment.
A similar number of private biotech companies were successful in raising money in each of the past two years (41 in 2011 versus 43 in 2010), but the average round in 2011 was $20.3 million, down from a mean $23.2 million per round in 2010.
Times were tougher still on the public markets in 2011, with just $347 million raised by 27 public biotech companies, a mean $12.8 million per financing. In 2010, more than twice as much, $744 million, was raised by 21 public biotech companies, giving an average of $35.4 million raised per round.
Sweden’s Moberg Derma AB, which markets topical formulations for nail infections, was the sole therapeutics-focused IPO in 2011, listing on the Nasdaq OMX exchange in Stockholm in May. The company raised just SEK 74 million ($10 million).
There are signs that investors became more frugal as 2011 wore on, with fewer private biotech companies raising money in the second half of 2011 than in the first half, 17 versus 24. On average, companies also raised less, $16.7 million, in the second half of 2011 than in the 2011 first half, $22.8 million.
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