Back to School 1999: Structure 2000

Last year BioCentury's annual "Back-to-School" report, entitled Back to Basics, described the requirements for building a sustainable company. This year we propose to start a discussion about the structure of the biotech industry going forward into 2000.

This may seem an odd question to ask, given that the group is going through what is thus far its second best stock runup since BioCentury started keeping score in late 1992. The BioCentury 100 climbed 135 percent in the 17 months between December 1994 and May 1996, and has gained 102 percent in the past year. However, the overall performance of biotech stocks shouldn't be allowed to mask some of the continuing issues in sub-sectors of the group, which have long-term implications for the industry as a whole...