The list of nine-figure financings for private biotechs is starting to look like the scrolling receipts from CVS or Walgreens.
If that pace continues, it could top the heydays of 2020 and 2021.
In the first half of the year, at least 50 biotechs announced private financing rounds of $100 million or more, according to an Endpoints News tally. Investors sprinted out of the gate this year, announcing 21 megarounds by March 20. The pace accelerated in the second quarter as they mainly put their dollars toward companies already in the clinic, meaning a data readout or big de-risking event is on the horizon. About 15 of the 50 companies were not yet in the clinic at the time of a financing announcement.
Most of the venture dollars are supporting research and testing of new medicines across today’s biggest biopharma fields: oncology, obesity, autoimmune and neuroscience.
Beacon Therapeutics carried the momentum into the second half of the year. The pivotal-stage gene therapy maker announced a $170 million Series B on Wednesday.
The two-month moving average of weekly venture capital volume is up 50% compared to a low in February, according to Tim Opler, an investment banker at Stifel who tracks the industry.
“The venture market has been picking up in recent months,” he wrote in his weekly market report on June 16. “Nonetheless, venture funding is going more and more into ‘megarounds,’ and it is not easy for emerging companies lacking superstar management to raise capital.”
One of the 50 companies to raise a megaround this year is immunology biotech Alumis, which has since gone public. Another megaround company — ADC maker ProfoundBio — was acquired by Genmab for $1.8 billion. Some of the biotechs on this list could likely entertain similar exits in the near future as the IPO market appears to warm up a little bit and pharma M&A appetite continues to favor private drug developers over public ones.
