Med-tech financings have continued to decline from 2021's peak when they brought in a combined total of $27.76 billion through April. In the first four months of 2022, that dropped 61.74% to $10.62 billion and this year they have fallen 44.16% to $5.93 billion. Broken out by type of financing, med-tech follow-ons are higher than the same period last year ($2.6 billion in early 2023 vs. $1.73 billion through April of last year).
Biopharma financings are pacing more than $300 million higher than at the end of April last year, but are well behind the total through April 2021 when the value of financings more than doubled any recent year due to the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Through the end of April, biopharmas have raised $19.83 billion this year, compared to $17.5 billion through the same month in 2022, $53.7 billion in 2021, $24.04 billion in 2020 and $19.53 billion in 2019.
For decades the biotech industry has been hounded by activists over animal testing. Most notably, a campaign against Huntington Life Sciences in the late 1990s through 2000s included arson, harassment, threats and alleged fire bombings. Less severe, but still troubling for biotech, animal rights activists join with anti-GMOers most years to protest at the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) convention. But as biotech has branched into cultured meat and alternatives to animal testing, the companies and scientists involved have been praised by animal rights groups. Chip technologies unite animal activists and biotechs Biotechs developing chip technologies are at the forefront...
