While most of the 30 stocks that comprise BioWorld’s Drug Developers Index (BDDI) are trading down for the year, the three showing the most upward movement in 2021 include a company at the forefront of COVID-19 vaccine development, an RNAi therapeutics firm that became a multibillion-dollar acquisition target, and a neurological disease company with one marketed product.
With a few weeks left in the year, the biopharma industry has raised a total of $116.18 billion through 1,506 transactions, both of which are second only to 2020.
With a growing number of deals worth $1 billion or more, 2021 values are slowly inching past 2020’s record year, as mergers and acquisitions also move higher, indicating a potentially stronger second half of the year.
When the SARS-CoV-2 virus first emerged in the U.S., the knee-jerk reaction by biopharma researchers was to make the best vaccines and therapeutics possible and to do so quickly.
More than 21 months since the SARS-CoV-2 virus was first identified in Wuhan, China, the questions just keep coming, and the longer they go unanswered, the more divisive the opinions become. Controversies over the efficacy of current vaccines, over whether boosters are necessary for the general population, over the safety of COVID-19 vaccines for young children, over how to distribute the shrinking supply of highly effective monoclonal antibodies, and over how the virus originated in the first place – all of these looming questions have created a firestorm of uncertainty that will not stop burning.
When the SARS-CoV-2 virus first emerged in the U.S., the knee-jerk reaction by biopharma researchers was to make the best vaccines and therapeutics possible and to do so quickly. Since then, the number of those that have entered development has reached 1,001, more than for any other viral infection aside from HIV.
For the first time since February, the BioWorld Biopharmaceutical Index (BBI) took a sharp plummet with shares falling in the last few weeks for 18 of the 22 stock components.
For the first time this year, the amount of money raised by the biopharma industry has dropped below the amount collected during the same timeframe last year, even though the number of transactions has climbed by nearly 10%.
The world has been running an ultramarathon since the COVID-19 pandemic began, but despite the ups and downs of cases and deaths, the wins and losses of clinical efforts, every day is another step forward toward herd immunity and the finish line.
