Tag Archives: Biotech

Biotech feels like it’s got some wind in its sails here at the start of 2024, with positive sentiments from the JPM conference. Indeed, the public equity markets feeling somewhat buoyant for the first time in ages. With the close

Times remain tough for private biotech venture capital funding. Access to capital is more constrained than it’s been in years, and companies are starting to feel the pinch.  Yet, despite the pain after a cycle of excess, perhaps this return

By Aoife Brennan, CEO of Synlogic Therapeutics, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC Earlier this month, I attended the J.P. Morgan 41st annual Healthcare Conference in San Francisco after a two-year hiatus. Despite the torrential rain

By Joshua Brumm, CEO of Dyne Therapeutics, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC By all accounts, 2022 did not start according to plan for the biotech industry. The U.S. economy and growth stocks struggled with the

By Andrea DiMella, VP and Head of Talent at Atlas Venture, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC Like many of you, I’m a consumer of biotech industry news. Multiple times of day I scour BioCentury, STAT,

Another day, another “restructuring” – there’s been a flurry of press releases recently using phrases like “exploring strategic alternatives”, “extending the cash runway”, and “de-prioritizing” certain R&D programs. These announcements are obviously responses to the tough market environment. In every

There’s “just too many early stage companies going public”, or so goes one of the most common lamentations about the current state of the biotech market. I’ve read a good deal of venting covering this theme, including comments about VCs

Misery loves company, and so it goes with the stock market for the innovation ecosystem these days. The general risk-off market environment has been crushing both the emerging tech and biotech sectors alike. Last year, generalists in many ways capitulated

Biotech sentiment is super bearish today, as the sector has been crushed over the last year. There’s blood in the water, especially for small and mid-cap players, and everyone’s looking for what caused the carnage. There are many factors at

We’ve now entered the 46th straight quarter of biotech IPO activity. New equity issuance for biotech in 2021 has broken records for the amount of capital raised, topping even the strong years of 2020 and 2014. Although the open and

By Sam Truex, Venture Partner at Atlas Venture, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC. Holy cow, have we seen the rain lately – both downpours outside and a downpour of SPAC activity. In October 2020, Bruce

By Joshua Brumm, CEO of Dyne Therapeutics, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC When I play board games, I play to win. That requires thinking several moves ahead. In the game Risk, for instance, it’s not

2020 was an incredibly paradoxical year for those of us in biotech: the striking dichotomy of simultaneously experiencing agonizing tragedy alongside buoyant optimism. It was truly a horrifically tragic year for humanity, and for America in particular.  As everyone knows,

By Joshua Brumm, CEO of Dyne Therapeutics, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC Over the course of my career in healthcare, I’ve been fortunate to serve in a leadership role through four IPOs and even more

By Rene Russo, CEO of Xilio Therapeutics, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC Prioritization is a concept that we have become intimately aware of, given the continually blurred lines of personal and professional obligations in a

By Aoife Brennan, CEO of Synlogic Therapeutics, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC I have many fond memories of St Patrick’s Day—most of them involve marching in the parade with a plastic bag and a few

By Pamela L. Esposito, CBO of Replimune, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC. “You gotta know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away, know when to run…” Kenny Rogers’

By Jodie Morrison, CEO of Cadent Therapeutics, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC It’s been over three months since stay at home advisories and social distancing protocols abruptly arrived in Massachusetts. Calls for a return to

This blog was written by Andrea DiMella, VP and Head of Talent at Atlas Venture, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC. What a difference a little time makes. When Bruce originally encouraged me to be a

Venture capital is a long investment cycle business, and never before has that been so clear as now in the face of the ongoing COVID pandemic. Even with the unprecedented public equity market volatility, venture investing into private biopharma companies

This blog was written by Samantha Truex, CEO of Quench Bio, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC.  I am a planner.  I like to plan most things well in advance; in fact, maybe too far in

The startup paradigm for the creation and funding of new biotech companies has evolved enormously over the past two decades. Recently there’s been a pair of articles from Tech VCs about applying alternative models of company creation (here, here) to

Startups management teams often have a love-hate relationship with their Board of Directors: while Boards can be hugely helpful and constructive in the best of times, they can be dysfunctional and damaging in the worst. And most CEOs enjoy complaining

JB Harvey broke his personal record earlier this winter by skiing over 22 trails in a single day at Loon Mountain. It was an awesome day. And 22 runs would be a huge day for anyone, but it was particularly

After last year’s inaugural success, we’re excited for 2019’s Science2Startup conference in April 2019, an invitation-only university-focused biotech entrepreneurship event aimed at building connectivity across the academic, tech transfer, and venture communities. Working with a steering committee comprised of Atlas,

Heading into the winter holidays always brings out festive reflections of the past year. Twelve months ago, we were thrilled to say goodbye to 2016 and excited to embrace 2017’s promise.  And in large part, the past year has delivered

Fund flows between sectors are a critically important dynamic in the equity capital markets: when net fund flows are positive, more demand for equity exists and stock price movement bias upwards; conversely, when fund flows are negative, the selling pressure

Although many wrote off the biotech IPO markets as moribund earlier in 2016, the sector has been quietly issuing a steady stream of new offerings. Despite the volatility related to drug pricing, and disastrous first six-weeks of the year, we’ve

This blog was written by Ron Renaud, CEO of RaNA Therapeutics, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC. About three weeks ago, I attended a dinner organized by a good friend and former sell-side competitor, Dr. Yaron

With the big cancer confab ASCO 2016 fading into memory, R&D teams everywhere are getting back to work on their cancer programs – and across the industry many of them will be doing the same work, on the same targets,

This blog was written by Adam Rosenberg, CEO of Rodin Therapeutics, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC. After a long, challenging period for CNS R&D – marked by late-stage clinical failures, mass layoffs, and limited early-stage

Imagine you were an investor version of Rip Van Winkle. You went to sleep in October 2012 and woke up today. You’d take a quick look at biotech and think we were in a raging bull market. A few thoughts

This blog was written by Michael Gladstone, Principal at Atlas Venture, as part of the “From the Trenches” feature of LifeSciVC. Youth is often well represented among entrepreneurs – except in biotech. William Osler, founder of Johns Hopkins University and the

Biotech is definitely red-hot, and has been for the past eight quarters. Immuno-oncology, cancer metabolism, gene therapy, orphan diseases, NASH, autoimmune – there’s a broad range of disease settings that are capturing the excitement and imagination of investors today. With some

This blog was written by Jeff Hatfield, CEO of Vitae Pharmaceuticals, as part of the “From the Trenches” feature of LifeSciVC. Over the past two weeks in LifeSciVC, I read with great interest and appreciation the blogs of two friends of

As one of big drivers behind the recent IPO window, cross-over investing into private biotech companies by both mutual fund and hedge fund investors has become increasingly commonplace over the past couple years.  As described at the BIO Investor meeting

With the biotech IPO window still open for business, and valuations of the recent classes of 2013 and 2014 remaining robust, all eyes have been focused on this part of the value chain.  Significant mezzanine pre-IPO rounds are getting done

That’s the dilemma facing drug hunters as leadership roles in biotech become more and more attractive.  You may have noticed that more and more seasoned pharma executives are making the move from big pharma or big biotech to lead small

As with everything in life, it’s always about the people.  Bet the jockey, not the horse.  Great entrepreneurs and C-level executives are very hard to come by in R&D-intensive biotech companies, and its probably one of the biggest bottlenecks in

Return distributions in venture capital across different sectors have been a frequent source of commentary, and new data from Correlation Ventures provides further substrate for that theme. I’ve highlighted data from Correlation Ventures (CV) in the past, looking at top