3 ms·

...but VC and private equity funding for biotech has been available in the 90s too?

nextos 4y ago
It was an order of magnitude more difficult to raise VC money for biotech back then. These days you can even raise a seed with no experimental data. That was extraordinarily unusual even well into the 2000s. There are articles around discussing how in case of Alzheimer's it was impossible to get VC funding for immune ideas, even though they already had interesting evidence. The same cabal was also blocking them. I think you need to be an insider to realize how incredibly political most research in medicine is.
- throwaway5752 4y ago
  I have to ask, do you have experience in this area? Because it doesn't agree with my limited experience and I'm curious when/where you were involved with biotech startups and funding in the 90s/early 00s.
  - openknot 4y ago
    I'm an outsider, but to quote credible external sources, Science AAAS writer Derek Lowe documented that the biotech startup scene was large and relatively easier to get investments in from 1991 to 1994, with stagnation in 2012 [0]. McKinsey separately reported that there has since been another boom in the biotech sector in the 2020s [1]. [0] https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/biotech-class-early-90s https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/biotech-class-earl... [1] https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/life-sciences/our-insights/whats-ahead-for-biotech-another-wave-or-low-tide https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/life-sciences/our-insigh...
    - killjoywashere 4y ago
      > boom in the biotech sector in the 2020s Thanks, McKinsey, that's a great use of your consulting superpowers. Hey, was there a boom in artificial intelligence around 2015 as well? For $65,000 an hour, I'm sure you'll be happy to tell us.
  - dekhn 4y ago
    I was in grad school at that time, in a program that heavily emphasized bio-entrepneurship. It was not easy to get money to start a biotech company at the time. The only ones I can recall required a star professor, a working technology, a university patent, and even then, most of them failed or pivoted.
- forum_ghost 4y ago
  these days as in this decade, or right now? Apparently VCs are clamping down on loose funding in the current climate, or thats not the case in biotech?

It was an order of magnitude more difficult to raise VC money for biotech back then. These days you can even raise a seed with no experimental data. That was extraordinarily unusual even well into the 2000s. There are articles around discussing how in case of Alzheimer's it was impossible to get VC funding for immune ideas, even though they already had interesting evidence. The same cabal was also blocking them. I think you need to be an insider to realize how incredibly political most research in medicine is.

throwaway5752 4y ago
I have to ask, do you have experience in this area? Because it doesn't agree with my limited experience and I'm curious when/where you were involved with biotech startups and funding in the 90s/early 00s.
- openknot 4y ago
  I'm an outsider, but to quote credible external sources, Science AAAS writer Derek Lowe documented that the biotech startup scene was large and relatively easier to get investments in from 1991 to 1994, with stagnation in 2012 [0]. McKinsey separately reported that there has since been another boom in the biotech sector in the 2020s [1]. [0] https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/biotech-class-early-90s https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/biotech-class-earl... [1] https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/life-sciences/our-insights/whats-ahead-for-biotech-another-wave-or-low-tide https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/life-sciences/our-insigh...
  - killjoywashere 4y ago
    > boom in the biotech sector in the 2020s Thanks, McKinsey, that's a great use of your consulting superpowers. Hey, was there a boom in artificial intelligence around 2015 as well? For $65,000 an hour, I'm sure you'll be happy to tell us.
- dekhn 4y ago
  I was in grad school at that time, in a program that heavily emphasized bio-entrepneurship. It was not easy to get money to start a biotech company at the time. The only ones I can recall required a star professor, a working technology, a university patent, and even then, most of them failed or pivoted.
forum_ghost 4y ago
these days as in this decade, or right now? Apparently VCs are clamping down on loose funding in the current climate, or thats not the case in biotech?