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Biotech's wellspring: the health of private biotech in 2013

Nature Biotechnology volume 32, pages 428–435 (2014)Cite this article

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An Erratum to this article was published on 09 June 2014

This article has been updated

The biotech boom in public markets is trickling down and reinvigorating the US private sector, but European startup funding continues to stagnate.

A deeper look at the figures reveals some reasons for caution, however. The total amount raised—$5.8 billion—is less than what was invested in 2012 and far less than the nearly $7 billion invested in the peak year 2007. What's more, at the earliest stages of the private biotech company pipeline, the pool of VC funding for startups continues to stagnate, and the number of venture funds focusing on early stage is dwindling; indeed, VC investment in European startups looks particularly moribund. The question is whether alternatives to venture funding, such as family offices, philanthropy and crowdfunding, will provide something of a stopgap. Certainly, many startup CEOs are wondering whether the boom in the public markets will resonate within the private sector this year, enabling them to share in the feel-good factor.

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Figure 1: Amount of venture capital raised.
Figure 2: VC investment for biotech innovative companies by region.
Figure 3: US biotech patents issued to universities in 2013.

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  • 14 May 2014

    In the version of this article initially published, in Box 3, it was reported that “Catabasis will instead monitor the situation as it approaches phase 3, when large amounts of capital will be required....” The line should have read, “Catabasis instead is keeping with its plan to develop the phase 2 package for its lead program and timing a public financing with phase 3 trials....” Michael Jirousek was also incorrectly identified as founder and CEO. He is the company's co-founder and CSO. On p. 431, column 2, Adam Cutler was incorrectly quoted as saying, “...but today, anyone “deemed to have an exciting enough technology platform with big enough names involved, either in management or on the board or as scientific founders—that's enough to get people excited.” It should have read, “...but in 2013 and the beginning of 2014, anyone “deemed to have an exciting enough technology platform with big enough names involved, either in management or on the board or as scientific founders—that was enough to get people excited.”

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  1. Brady Huggett is Business Editor, Nature Biotechnology,

    Brady Huggett

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Huggett, B. Biotech's wellspring: the health of private biotech in 2013. Nat Biotechnol 32, 428–435 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt.2905

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