BioIndustry Association/Informa Biotech Financing Update shows strong venture capital fundraising by sector as momentum continues to build for biotech financing in 2018

BioIndustry Association/Informa Biotech Financing Update shows strong venture capital fundraising by sector as momentum continues to build for biotech financing in 2018

The BIA/Informa Biotech Financing Update March-May 2018  released today shows that UK biotech companies’ ability to attract financing continues to build momentum after a solid start to the year.

Key points from the BIA/Informa data include:

  • Venture capital fundraising was strong in this period. £329.6m was raised between 1 March and 31 May 2018.
  • The UK biotech sector has already raised £464.5m through venture capital financing in 2018 and is on track to meet or surpass the overall 2017 total of £515m.
  • Overall follow on financing for this period was down on the first quarter of 2018, which was dominated by GW Pharma’s £221.6m follow on public offering on Nasdaq. However, this period did see a return to UK biotech companies raising money from follow on financing on both AIM and the Main Market with a total of £64.85m raised.
  • The UK biotech sector has raised £330.35m through follow on financings in 2018 and is on track to meet or exceed the overall 2017 total of £452m.
  • 2018 continues to have a slow start on IPOs for UK biotech companies, but this period has seen the first biotech IPO of the year by Acacia Pharma who raised £36m.

BIA CEO, Steve Bates, said: “It’s great to see so many BIA member companies feature within this dataset, from impressive venture capital fundraisings by Oxford Nanopore, Benevolent AI, Crescendo Biologics and Enterprise Therapeutics to follow on financings by Oxford Biomedica, Summit Therapeutics, Diurnal Group and Scancell Holdings and Acacia Pharma’s IPO. With financing activity continuing over the summer, we look forward to these positive trends continuing as we track the data throughout the remainder of 2018.”

The second quarterly Biotech Financing Update of 2018 sees the continuation of many of the trends shown in the annual report ‘Pipeline progressing: the UK’s Global Bioscience cluster in 2017’ that the BIA released in January and the Biotech Financing Update December 2017-February 2018 published in April 2018.

Notes to editors

You can download the full report at:

https://www.bioindustry.org/uploads/assets/uploaded/e29602c6-37e2-42f3-b48f92de5f631aa5.pdf

Contact: Ed Sexton, Senior Communications Manager, BIA 

[email protected] 02076302196

About the BIA                    

Established over 25 years ago at the infancy of biotechnology, the BioIndustry Association (BIA) is the trade association for innovative enterprises involved in UK bioscience. Members include emerging and more established bioscience companies; pharmaceutical companies; academic, research and philanthropic organisations; and service providers to the bioscience sector. The BIA represents the interests of its members to a broad section of stakeholders, from government and regulators to patient groups and the media. Our goal is to secure the UK's position as a global hub and as the best location for innovative research and commercialisation, enabling our world-leading research base to deliver healthcare solutions that can truly make a difference to people's lives.   

For further information, please go to www.bioindustry.org and twitter.com/BIA_UK

About Informa Pharma Intelligence

Informa is a leading business intelligence, academic publishing, knowledge and events group. Its Pharma Intelligence Division provides specialist data, intelligence and insight to businesses and professionals around the world, helping them make better decisions, gain competitive advantage and enhance return on investment. From early phase and portfolio decisions to clinical research and development and commercial planning and analysis, our services include a suite of complementary subscription news, data and analysis services, expert analyst reports and consulting capabilities from the world’s leading pharma and healthcare R&D and business intelligence brands – Datamonitor Healthcare, Sitetrove, Trialtrove, Pharmaprojects, Medtrack, Biomedtracker, Scrip, Pink Sheet, In Vivo.

https://pharmaintelligence.informa.com/

 

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