GHP September 2015

Comments on the report from Nooman Haque, Director of Life Science UK “The first half of 2015 has seen a continued growth in healthcare investments and exits in both the UK and US markets. According to Silicon Valley Bank’s mid-year update on “Trends in Healthcare Investments and Exits”, this progress has been driven for the most part by non-VC crossover investors with a desire for biopharma and device businesses preparing for an IPO. The report, analysing venture-backed healthcare activity between January and June 2015, shows that the health- care venture market is not just solid, it’s growing. With 24 biotech IPOs taking place within the first half of the year, a quarter of those raised more than $100 million. These are impressive figures, and have fuelled M&A activity in the sector. This activity however, has remained focused on early-stage businesses, with six out of the 11 M&A deals at the phase 1 or pre-clinical phase. As well as this, big pharmaceutical companies are increasingly keen to buy up innovative businesses developing new drugs and devices due to dwindling internal R&D pipelines. Driven by investor confidence, healthy access to capital and exit optionality, it looks as if 2015 will be the third consec- utive year of strong activity for the healthcare sector as the ‘biotech boom’ is showing no signs of slowing down.”