Delegates convening in San Francisco Monday for the 38th Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference and other related biotechnology conferences running at the same time will certainly be in a better frame of mind than just 12 months ago. Back then, the sector had just come off a terrible fourth quarter, with investors shying away from biopharma company equities big time.
Despite a rough ride on the capital markets for much of the year, particularly in the second and third quarters, this did not prevent the biopharmaceutical sector from attracting a significant amount of capital. According to BioWorld, when the curtain closed on 2019, approximately $57.6 billion had been generated by global public and private companies.
As we entered a new decade, BioWorld writers took the opportunity to review the highs and lows of the past 12 months and they concluded that 2019 was a great year for the sector – save for a few bumps in the road.
Investors warmed to biopharma company equities, particularly in the final quarter of the year, with the BioWorld Biopharmaceutical Index increasing 23% in value during this period, helping the group climb to a respectable 14% for the year after being underwater from April through to September.
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