Although various government incentives have been introduced in the past few years to encourage and support more research and development designed to accelerate the discovery of new antibiotics, they, in themselves, have not been enough.

The pleasant memories of summer vacations are sure to fade quickly for biotech investors who are returning, post-Labor Day, to the harsh realities of markets that are not ready to embrace the sector anytime soon. As we head to the end of the third quarter, there is no momentum being built by blue-chip biopharmaceutical companies, as their share values languished once again last month. 

Although investor sentiment continues to remain low and unlikely to change for the remainder of the year, it seems that fact has fallen on deaf ears of those companies looking to graduate to the public ranks. Already in the first few days of September, five biopharma companies have added themselves to the IPO runway, bringing the number of pending U.S. offerings to 12, according to BioWorld.

Although investor sentiment continues to remain low and unlikely to change for the remainder of the year, it seems that fact has fallen on deaf ears of those companies looking to graduate to the public ranks. Already in the first few days of September, five biopharma companies have added themselves to the IPO runway, bringing the number of pending U.S. offerings to 12, according to BioWorld.

Two recent deals signaled to the industry that efforts to target previously undruggable RNA with small-molecule therapies may be moving from academic endeavor to fruitful application.

The turbulent financial markets that have seen the Dow Jones Industrial Average drop over 2% in August appear to have caught up with innovative mid-cap public companies engaged in exciting cancer research such as immuno-oncology. Up until now they have enjoyed strong investor support, but for the first time this year investors appear to be moving out of this sector and, as a result, share values have dipped dramatically. As a result, the BioWorld Cancer Index is trading down 11% in August. 

The turbulent financial markets that have seen the Dow Jones Industrial Average drop over 2% so far this month appear to have caught up with innovative mid-cap public companies engaged in exciting cancer research such as immuno-oncology. Up until now they have enjoyed strong investor support, but for the first time this year investors appear to be moving out of this sector and, as a result, share values have dipped dramatically. As a result, the BioWorld Cancer Index is trading down 11% in August. 

The costs associated with navigating a new therapeutic through the regulatory process to final approval and subsequent marketing continue to rise despite industry's collective efforts to speed up the process of drug discovery and development in order to rein in those burgeoning expenses.

According to a new report from the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine, there are a whopping 932 regenerative medicine companies worldwide that are in the process of developing 440 gene therapies, 587 cell therapies and 125 tissue engineering/biomaterials products.

It appeared that investors were far more interested in their vacations than in tracking the progress of blue-chip biopharma companies last month. Not helping their cause was the ongoing drug pricing debate taking place in Washington. The quest to reduce the cost of drugs moved a step closer with the Senate Finance Committee completing its markup of the Prescription Drug Pricing Reduction Act and voting 19-9 to send the legislation to the full U.S. Senate.