A great way to better understand innovation in healthcare and life sciences is to follow the money. Where are the venture capital deals? Where did top indications secure Series A funding? Who are the moves in these deals? We’ll focus on 2019 for data consistency; let’s get into it!
Where the top mind believe value lives (investments):
- Biopharma $15.6B
- Health tech $7.5B
- Dx Tools (medical diagnostics), which combine next-generation sequencing and artificial intelligence and computational resources – $4.4B
- Medical Devices $4.9B
What are the top indications to be funded?
- Oncology
- Platform
- Neurology
- Orphan/rare disease
- Anti-infective: to prevent or treat infections; they include antibacterials, antivirals, antifungals, and antiparasitic medications
In biopharma, who’s the most active (U.S. and Europe, 2018-2019)?
- Alexandria, 42 deals
- G.V. Corporate, 17 deals
- Novartis, 16 deals
- Pfizer, 13 deals
- J&J, 12 deals
- AbbVie, 9 deals
- Merck, 7 deals
Which indication areas had the highest valuations?
- Cardiovascular
- Orthopedic
- Imaging
- Neurology
- Ophthalmology
Who’s the most active corporate healthcare investor?
- BlueCross BlueShield
- Alphabet
- Echo
- Philips
- Merck
- Tempus
We also saw a lot of movement in Series A deals. I enjoy looking at these acquisitions and takeovers targets to understand better how these innovative companies fit view themselves in the bigger picture. Where are they investing, and likewise, where are they divesting? Here are several of the movers the caught my eye.
- AlizePharama, France, $82M in funding, specializing in the development of innovative biopharmaceutical drugs, proteins, and peptides, for the treatment of metabolic diseases and cancer
- Anthos Therapeutics, Cambridge, MA, stage II trials for some innovative therapies for high-risk cardiovascular patients
- ArsenalBio, France, cell therapy, picked up $85M in round 1. Interestingly, even the University of California is a named investor in their Series A funding round.
- Elevatebio, Mass, Cell and gene therapy, two years old and just raised $170M. They focus on the development and manufacturing of a specific type of therapeutic approach.
- Talaris therapeutics, Louisville, KY and Boston, MA, IN 2019 they picked up $100M, then another $115M in Oct of 2020, crossing into phase III trials for crossed the Phase III with its lead drug, FCR001 –to prevent rejection of the donated organ by reducing infections
- Passagebio, Philadelphia, PA, focusing on genetic medicines for rare monogenic central nervous system disorders. They picked up more than $200M in 2019 and recently went IPO, now with a market cap of $1.15B.
- Mirum Pharmaceuticals, Foster City, CA, to developing drugs for rare liver diseases. Founded in 2018, now listed on Nasdaq with 604M in market cap.