2015年1月21日讯 /生物谷BIOON/ --2015年伊始，Moderna获得总额4亿5千万美元的风投让大众将目光投向了RNA疗法的发展。熟不知这一投资案在生物医药金融流通中创造了另一个记录。
根据美国国家风投协会（NVCA）的最新报告显示，将这笔投资计算在内，2014年全年生物医药风险投资总额达到了惊人的59亿6千万美元之多，堪称疯狂！而仅在2014年的最后一个季度，各大风投公司就在生物医药领域砸入了近20亿美元的资金，这也是近20年以来风投数目最多的一个季度。得益于风投公司的追捧，2014年生物医药技术投资较之2013年增长了29%之多。在NVCA的这份报告中显示，生物医药产业已经成为最受风投公司青睐的产业之一。而分析人士指出，在这些投资中，私募资金扮演了重要角色。
为什么2014年的生物医药产业风投会如此火爆？一个重要原因就是生物医药产业去年高度开放的IPO市场。通过生物医药企业的IPO，许多生物技术公司得以吸收投资者的大笔投资，从而开发新型疗法，这些资金也有效分担了药物开发中的风险。而另一方面，在2014年的生物医药IPO中还有一个重要特征，就是投资者的"喜新厌旧"。数据显示，风投资金中仅有25%流入了大型、成熟的生物技术公司。与之相对的，小型、创新型生物技术公司获得了众多投资者的青睐。
另一项值得注意的是，2014年同样火爆的生物医药企业兼并背后同样有着风险投资的身影。有消息称，2014年生物医药产业兼并总额高达2000亿美元以上，这一数字甚至受到了众多生物医药公司的认同。而这其中一些中型规模的兼并案则占了绝大部分。例如罗氏公司就在2014年分别以83亿美元和17亿美元收购了InterMune和Seragon两家公司。
如果将医疗器械产业计算在内，2014年风投公司在生物医药领域投入的总金额数将达到86亿美元，涉及789件收购案，比2013年增长了29%。形象的说，2014年生物医药公司获得的投资中每5美元就有1美元来自风投公司。
详细英文报道：
With a big assist from Moderna's recent monster round, the biotech industry came within a rounding error of breaking the annual record for new venture investing in 2014, racking up $5.96 billion in total investments in a frenzied year of deals, data and buyouts, according to The MoneyTree Report by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association based on data from Thomson Reuters.
To hit that figure, biotech VCs came up with $2 billion in new deals in the fourth quarter of 2014, the largest sum the venture analysts have counted for a three-month period in the past 20 years.
While flirting with the record top, biotechnology investments jumped 29% over a busy 2013, as the deal pace slowed a tad to a total of 470 for 2015. As the industry plowed through an unprecedented surge of IPOs, biotech accounted for the second biggest sector tracked by analysts involved with the MoneyTree Report.
"It's been just a fantastic year for biotech," says Greg Vlahos, the life sciences partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
There were some exceptional drivers behind the big numbers, he adds, pointing to Moderna's $446 million round and three other big deals worth more than $100 million each in life sciences. That's a reflection of more money coming in to back companies with multiple diseases on the radar along with multiple compounds in the pipeline, to help reduce risk. There's also a lot more nontraditional capital sources stepping in, with private equity playing a bigger role earlier in the drug development game.
Obviously the wide-open IPO window has played a big role in all this, adds Vlahos, and there are good signs that the trend has legs that can carry it well into 2015. A slowdown in IPOs would likely trigger a slide in venture funds for late-stage companies, he says, but with a 25% increase in funding for early-stage life sciences companies in 2014, startups are likely to continue to do well in the year ahead.
The venture track record for 2014 is part of what has become a familiar story through the course of this year. M&A activity broke the $200 billion mark last year, even without any megamergers to warp the figure. Instead there was a spike in mid-sized deals, with Roche ($RHHBY) buying the likes of InterMune ($8.3 billion) as well as Seragon ($1.7 billion). IPO's, meanwhile, continued at a blistering pace, with high-profile companies grabbing big sums from a new generation of investors. And between M&A deals and IPOs, venture groups were able to excite their backers with some sizable exits.
As a result, venture groups pushed ahead with a whole roster of new funds in recent months.
For the industry as a whole, adding in devices, VCs poured in $8.6 billion--the highest number since the financial crisis hit in 2008. That money went into 789 deals, a 29% spike over 2013. Dollars invested into life sciences companies accounted for close to $1 of every $5 of venture money tracked in 2014.