Pan-Europe: Looking past the enthusiasm

OXFORD - Plans by the London and Frankfurt stock exchanges to link up their high growth markets with NASDAQ will create some interesting challenges for Europe's biotech industry. While new market should provide European companies with access to deeper pools of capital, the companies could find themselves baking under the spotlight of global scrutiny.

The Deutsche Boerse and the London Stock Exchange last week finally confirmed that they will merge, after on-and-off talks for more than three years (see BioCentury Extra, Wednesday May 3).The new exchange, to be called iX, will be based in London and will account for 53 percent of all European share trading by volume, making it the largest in Europe. At the same time, the partners agreed to a 50:50 joint venture between iX and NASDAQ, which will combine London's techMARK and Frankfurt's Neuer Markt to create a market representing some 80 percent of European high growth shares...