DIAGNOSING HEALTH CARE TRENDS
Juhi Daga, Marquee Equity
The world is struggling to get back on its feet, and the market dynamics have profoundly transformed. The investment criterion, forecasting models, lucrative industries, and many other things have been remodeled. One thing that this pandemic has taught us is that it is highly unlikely for a country to be resilient without good healthcare institutions, services, and infrastructure. By taking a look at funding patterns based on sectors and geographies, this brief tries to understand the proclivity of investors and the mindset behind their funding patterns.
The Market Take
The trends suggest that the life sciences, biotech, health diagnostics, and wellness sectors are on a rollercoaster that only goes up. In the first half of 2020, investors globally put $16.55 billion to work across over 450 deals in the biotech and life science sectors in series A and beyond. If we were to explain using comparative statistics by the beginning of the second quarter of 2020, biotech companies had already raised 77% of the cumulative funding in 2016.
Several notable early-stage funding deals include a $125 million Series B round for ITeos Therapeutics, Series D round for Atea Pharmaceuticals, a $200 million Series A round for EQRx, and a $150 million Series B round for C4 Therapeutics. In July, healthcare garnered funding of $6 Billion, some pop-ups in the sector were Brooklyn based Medly Pharmacy raising a series B round of $100 Million, California based Caption Health raised a round of $ 53 Million Series B, and Owkin a French company applying machine learning in the realms of medical research has secured $18 Million in funding.
American and European markets have been very generous and welcoming to firms bringing about tangible change through constant innovation. Despite the global slowdown in venture funding due to the onset of the pandemic, USA (Massachusetts) , India, Indonesia, Israel, Australia and New Zealand, France, Belgium, and Brazil have been the hotspots for investments, with Massachusetts , ruling the leaderboard with a record $7 Billion+ investments in the first half of 2020.
The New Ball Game
Covid-19 pandemic has amplified the need for building a stronger ecosystem with digital integrations into business models. Heavily guarded by the algorithms of machine learning and the use of artificial intelligence, firms are leveraging top-notch technology and robotics in the field of biology to provide a way to perform complex and simpler procedures in a safer and a faster way.
Historically, the healthcare industry wasn’t the prime example of expedited innovation. The sense of urgency that the pandemic has unleashed on the biotech industry can arguably be considered a boon. The average person has vehemently started taking care of their underlying health concerns and overall fitness, valuing preventive healthcare, and early diagnosis to gird their loins to face the incessant pandemic. This sudden surge in demand for primary and smart healthcare solutions has boosted growth in the sector in turn catching the attention of investors eyeing firms powered by ingenuity, innovation, and profits!
Healthcare is transforming in real-time and there is no better time to reimagine the system than now. Even though it has admittedly received less interest from the investors in the past few years, things are changing now. With the current heterodox environment and ongoing structural changes in addition to breakthrough products, we can expect a robust growth and huge inflows of cash.