UK Life Science Funding Hits 10-Year High
Financing for UK life science companies from equity markets and venture capital soared in 2014 and has remained buoyant throughout 2015 as the industry recovers from a long investment drought, according to an article in the business daily Financial Times (FT).
Investment has now reached its highest level for at least a decade, the newspaper says, and notes that this should be welcome news for the UK government, which through taxes and tax breaks has sought to promote life sciences.
Figures released by the UK Bioindustry Association (BIA) and research firm Evaluate show that money for life science raised through flotations rose more than eightfold in 2014 to £408 million and accounted for more than 40% of the total raised in this way by UK biotech firms in the past 10 years. Venture capital funding rose 71% to a high of $430 million.
The FT credits rising risk appetite and ultra-low interest rates for the development, which it says has coincided with signs of a resurgence in biotech innovation on both sides of the Atlantic – even if UK financing figures remain a small fraction of the money poured into the US sector.
The $2.4 billion in venture capital raised by UK biotech companies in the past decade was only 7% of the $37 billion pumped into their US counterparts, according to the research by BIA and Evaluate. Almost half the UK total stemmed from a 2014 single ipo – Circassia, an Oxford-based allergy drug developer.
To narrow the gap between the UK and the US in life science promotion, London mayor Boris Johnson has proposed creating a dedicated £10 billion mega fund.
