This week’s hot topic: Biopharma investment market bullish ahead of Optimum’s annual conference

By Richard Staines, Optimum Strategic Communications

As the Optimum team prepares for its 16th Annual Healthcare Investor Conference on Thursday, the mood is upbeat in the biopharma finance market, with 2024 turning into a busy year. 

It’s a turnaround following 2023, where investment was in the doldrums and confidence was low as the industry suffered a painful post-pandemic hangover. 

According to the trade press, several key measures indicate the changing fortunes in the life sciences investment market. 

Biotech IPOs were like a rarely seen bird in 2023, but 2024 has seen a significant change with a whole flock of companies going public. 

Scrip noted that there is now a queue of biotechs filing paperwork with the SEC in the U.S. – Septerna, Apimeds, CAMP4 and Upstream are among those aiming to go public. 

And BioWorld reported that five biotech IPOs took place in September alone, raising just over $1 billion in total, with the largest being Bicara Therapeutics at $362 million. 

The influential publication is also reporting a surge in biopharma financings for the first nine months of 2024, with $86.24 billion raised so far and $8.7 billion in September alone. 

This echoes the sentiments of the investors we’ve spoken to ahead of our conference, who are putting the dark days of 2023 behind them. 

You can keep ahead of the developments from the conference on our website, with insightful content and commentary from the event held at the King’s Fund in London. 

For more insights check out the Optimum newsroom!