The dark of COVID-19 brings promise to Germany’s biotech scene

Apart from a few outliers, the biotech ecosystem in Germany has largely been devoid of life for over a decade. But COVID-19 has brought several more German stories into the limelight, and with them some shoots of optimism that the translational and financing environment for German biotechs is steadily improving.

Those with long memories still connect the German biotech scene with the failed Neuer Markt, the high-growth segment of the German stock exchange that operated from 1997 to 2003 and at the time was heralded as Europe’s rival to NASDAQ. By all accounts it was a spectacular failure that only a few companies — such as German stalwart MorphoSys AG — survived...