BioCentury
ARTICLE | Finance

Ebb & Flow

February 12, 2007 8:00 AM UTC

The hallway chatter at any financial or business development meeting these days is that M&A is the way to go and the markets are cold. Some wags even suggest there’s something wrong with any company that has to raise money in the public equity markets, as there must be some reason it wasn’t able to be acquired or get a blockbuster deal.

The $907.8 million raised by the sector last week suggests there’s something else going on. Indeed, the mega financing week included no giant top tier deal to pad the numbers. Instead, the money went to small and mid-size biotechs with late-stage compounds. Of the 20 public financings that raised more than $10 million, only five were for companies that didn’t have a compound at least in Phase III testing...