Juno Therapeutics Inc., of Seattle, priced its eagerly awaited initial public offering (IPO) of about 11 million shares of common stock at $24 each, generating $264 million – making it the largest U.S. biotech IPO in the last 15 years.
With only about 12 trading days remaining this year we take a quick test of biotech's current temperature and tee-up our upcoming end-of-year features that will provide a deeper dive into the sector's 2014 business and financial performance and reflect upon what the future might hold.
The ongoing bullish period for the biotechnology industry has endured for the past two years and still shows no signs of slowing down. Over this period, public biotech companies have taken advantage of their skyrocketing share prices to carry out a significant number of follow-on financings.
One year ago, heading into the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, biotech was on a roll with public biotech companies developing therapeutics setting a record pace and BioWorld's Blue Chip Index up a whopping 76 percent in value, considerably outpacing the general markets, with the Dow Jones Industrial average up 22 percent and the Nasdaq Composite index up 33 percent over the same period.
According to statistics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, arthritis in all its various disease states affects approximately one in five adults in America and the debilitating symptoms of the severe long-term pain associated with these conditions exerts a tremendous toll on the economy. As the population ages the incidence of these various musculoskeletal diseases is predicted to increase, so there's a constant demand for new medicines.
Well, now it is official: The record number of 66 U.S. biotech initial public offerings (IPOs) that were completed in 2000 has been broken following the completion of another two IPOs last week.
With investors focused on the performance of large cap biotech companies and their third quarter earnings the early returns have, by and large, been positive. As a result, as we close the curtain on what has been an extremely turbulent capital market environment in October, biotech has emerged relatively unscathed and is poised to finish the year in good shape.
Health care has evolved rapidly during the past 25 years thanks to game changing scientific and medical breakthroughs that have evolved into lifesaving drugs, devices and procedures that are now utilized in the standard of care we receive today. What then are the likely new medical innovations that hold a similar potential of making a dramatic difference to the lives of patients in the very near future?
Well, now it is official: The record number of 66 U.S. biotech initial public offerings (IPOs) that were completed in 2000 has been broken following the completion of another two IPOs last week.
With investors focused on the performance of large cap biotech companies and their third quarter earnings the early returns have, by and large, been positive. As a result, as we close the curtain on what has been an extremely turbulent capital market environment in October, biotech has emerged relatively unscathed and is poised to finish the year in good shape.
