Introduction Imagine describing the global situation in 2020 to investors and executives in the pharma and biotech field in 2019. It would probably take them a while to get over their incredulity, but if they could bring themselves to envisage the scale of disruption and risk inflicted on human society, business, economics and health the whole world over, I bet they would also anticipate a major impact on biopharma deal-making and financing. With that in mind, the resilience of biotechnology and associated activities is quite remarkable. It has not only been those engaged in finding treatments, preventions and diagnostics for the novel coronavirus that have been active: companies across the spectrum – with the usual strong showing from oncology – have secured lucrative partnership deals and completed IPOs. Admittedly, M&A values have declined, but comparisons are skewed by 2019 mega-deals, and deal volumes have taken a much smaller dent. Meanwhile public market listings are flourishing, and VC fundraising in the first half of 2020 almost matched the full-year total for 2019. This selection of 2020 coverage from Scrip and In Vivo provides rich insights into the attitudes and trends around deals and financing, two major engines of innovation and growth for the biopharma universe, in this most extraordinary pandemic period. Eleanor Malone Editor In Chief, Europe | Scrip, Pink Sheet, In Vivo, Generics Bulletin Informa Pharma Intelligence
3 / September 2020
Š Informa UK Ltd 2020 (Unauthorized photocopying prohibited.)