Nat. Biotechnol. 31, 396–403 (2013); published online 8 May 2013; corrected after print 10 May 2013

In the version of this article initially published, in Table 1, the percentage of money placed into profitable biotechs in 2012 was incorrectly listed as 0.49. The correct percentage is 0.44. Also, in Table 3, the investor group Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners was incorrectly listed as Rothschild. In Table 5, the “Other” category for investment in therapeutic modalities in 2011 was incorrectly listed as 812; the correct amount is 841. In Table 7, the total number of life sciences spinouts over the 2008–2012 period was incorrectly listed as 47,000. The correct number is 471. Finally, the call out for Figure 3 on p. 401, second column, was incorrectly labeled as Figure 2. The errors have been corrected in the HTML and PDF versions of the article.