The biotech IPO feast flags as investors lose their appetite for R&D risk

Print 30 June 2016
John Carroll / ENDPOINTS

There was a time after the 2008 crash that biotech IPOs were about as popular as snow in March. But from 2013 through 2015 generalist investors got over their fears and jumped into one of the hottest stock games on the planet. Funds chased each other for huge returns. CEOs became overnight millionaires.

Now the market pendulum has swung back as the bears pushed aside the bulls. But that doesn’t mean that the new ice age has begun, either.

With H1 coming to an end tomorrow, Nasdaq has counted 14 biotech IPOs that collectively raked in $878 million, a much reduced figure from the $4 billion raised in 2015 from 42 biotech IPOs they tracked. And it was little compared to the 61 IPOs that raised $4.3 billion during the go-go days of 2014.

That’s not too surprising, given the gale force winds that have been howling in the biotech sector over the last 6 months. A lot of good companies have seen their stock prices fall by half. A hint of bad news now can eviscerate stocks in seconds, and there are a host of companies that are close to or in penny stock territory.

What still draws a crowd on Wall Street? Certainly gene editing. If you look over the list of H1 IPOs Nasdaq offerered me, you’ll see that Editas and Intellia scored in the top ranks of new IPOs. That’s why CRISPR Therapeutics has been setting the stage for an S-1 that’s almost certainly going to shoot for the stars.

China’s BeiGene got the ball rolling with the biggest offering of the year. But with more and more biotechs hanging back to wait for a sunnier investment climate, it’s not unusual to see plenty of discounts on share prices.

There are a couple of biotech IPOs in the queue this week, Syros Pharmaceuticals and Gemphire Therapeutics, which are together hunting about $100 million more.

The music hasn’t died in biotech, but it’s not nearly as loud and urgent as the hit tunes from 2013-2015.

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