The biopharmaceutical sector welcomed a further 11 new IPO graduates in July, bringing the number to 39 that have started to trade on the U.S. markets this year. The companies going public last month collectively raised more than $2.5 billion and most of them made a favorable impression following their first day of trading, with the group increasing their share values by an average of 16%.
The share prices of blue-chip biopharmaceutical companies continued on their lackluster trajectory, which started in June and collectively lost ground last month, with the BioWorld Biopharmaceutical index slipping about 1.3% as investors took a break in order to digest the deluge of COVID-19 vaccine data released during the period and the impact on the bottom lines that the pandemic has exerted among those companies that have reported their second-quarter results.
There were no surprises among the latest rankings in JLL’s Life Sciences Outlook report, which tracks geographic shifts in life sciences innovation, operations and facilities investments, and includes an analysis of markets actively investing in their life sciences sectors. Boston, San Francisco and San Diego once again occupied the top three spots as the leading U.S. life science clusters.
Biopharma companies that are focused on cell therapies have reported promising clinical trial results in their ability to treat acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), a condition that has shown to be a significant contributor to higher mortality in COVID-19 cases.
With an increasing number of neurological manifestations being reported in patients suffering from COVID-19 infection, the need for therapies to treat those conditions as well as other major CNS disorders has, once again, been highlighted. That may be one of the reasons why investors have turned their attention to the space once again, with several members of the BioWorld Neurological Diseases index enjoying an uptick in their share valuations.
While biopharmaceutical research is currently concentrating on the threat posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the disease has provided a sharp reminder that our focus should not be lost on infectious diseases as a whole, along with the growing global problem of antibiotic resistance (AMR), which has the potential to dwarf COVID-19 in terms of deaths and economic costs, according to the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA).
