The global biopharmaceutical sector generated $16 billion in the third quarter of the year, adding to the almost $38 billion it raised in the first half of the year. According to BioWorld data, the collective $54 billion the sector has brought in at the three quarter post is 4 percent more than the total it raised at this point last year. The sector is poised to post a record year for the amount of cash it hauled in and to top the $69 billion raised in 2015.

Investors shrugged off concerns about the prospect of long-term trade wars, which helped the general markets to push higher this month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, in fact, established a new record high on Thursday, topping the previous record established back in January.

The growing scientific and public interest about the role played by microorganisms in the maintenance of overall health and prevention and treatment of disease has not gone unnoticed by federal regulators. In a statement by FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb in August, he commented that "the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is playing a key role in sorting through the science and the science fiction of this evolving field."

According to JLL's seventh annual Life Sciences Outlook report, which tracks geographic shifts in life sciences innovation, operations and facilities investments, including an analysis of markets actively investing in their life sciences sectors, there are no significant changes in the latest rankings of the leading U.S. life science clusters, with the greater Boston and the San Francisco Bay regions once again heading the top clusters list.

As we move towards the final quarter of the year, global biopharma companies have already raised an incredible $50 billion from public and private financing deals, which represents twice the amount raised for the whole of last year. The cash continues to flow particularly from public offerings. According to a report released by Renaissance Capital the U.S. IPO market as a whole is on track for its busiest year since 2014, with offerings predicted to come thick and fast post Labor Day. 

As we head toward the Labor Day holiday weekend, the market performance of the sector's blue chip companies have so far failed to capitalize on their welcomed surge in valuation in July. As a result they are treading water this month with the value of the BioWorld Biopharmaceutical Index up a modest 0.5 percent at last Thursday's market close compared to a 1 percent increase in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and a 3 percent jump in value for the Nasdaq Composite index. (See BioWorld Biopharmaceutical index, page 8.)

As we head towards the Labor Day holiday weekend the market performance of the sector's blue chip companies have so far failed to capitalize on their welcomed surge in valuation in July. As a result they are treading water this month with the value of the BioWorld Biopharmaceutical Index up a modest 0.5 percent at last Thursday's market close compared to a 1 percent increase in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and a 3 percent jump in value for the Nasdaq Composite index. 

The biopharma sector's research and development investments are continuing to increase. An in-depth analysis by BioWorld Insight of the second-quarter 2018 financial reports from the top 100 public biopharmaceutical companies by market cap, excluding big pharma companies, found that collectively they invested over 22 percent more in R&D during the first two quarters of 2018 than they did in the comparable period last year. A whopping $19.2 billion has so far been spent compared to $15.7 billion last year. 

The high expectations that have been swirling around the nanomedicine field for almost a decade are still yet to be fully realized. However, there are promising signs that significant investments in early stage research over the past few years are starting to reap dividends with new generation therapeutic applications moving into clinical testing. The field is now expanding rapidly, and analysts and industry observers have identified it as a key enabling technology that is likely to impact the development of new therapeutics and diagnostics.

Blue chip biopharmaceutical companies emerged from their six-month swoon with a strong market performance. A series of beat and raise second-quarter earnings reports coupled with pipeline successes during July coaxed investors off the sidelines and, for the first time this year, the BioWorld Biopharmaceutical index closed in positive territory, thanks to an almost 7 percent jump in value, beating the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which recorded a 4.7 percent increase, and the Nasdaq Composite index, which rose 2 percent.