The top 100 public biopharmaceutical companies with market caps greater than $1 billion, and excluding big pharma companies, spent a total of almost $12 billion on R&D in the first quarter of 2021, compared to $9.4 billion invested last year.
Although more than a third of U.S. citizens are fully vaccinated from COVID-19 and society moves closer to normalcy in many parts of the world, the SARS-CoV-2 virus continues to dramatically impact biopharma dealmaking with nonprofit entities, as well as grant awards.
Business development among biopharmaceutical companies working on therapeutics for cancer indications has been brisk this year, with 32% of the 654 deals recorded to date by BioWorld involving cancer indications. However public companies in the area haven’t gained much investor enthusiasm, with the BioWorld Cancer index dropping over 18% year-to-date, with 6% of the loss in valuation taking place this month.