Thursday, November 18, 2010

Limited Love For Life Sciences

Oh, how times have changed. Back in the very late 1990s, as the Nasdaq bubble was filling up ahead of the final pop, life sciences IPOs basked in a frenzy of investor attention. Many lousy (or at least seriously under-developed) companies debuted to eye-popping valuations and saw strong follow-on interest in the market. 

Nowadays, it is a decidedly different market. Whether in spite of Illumina's (Nasdaq:ILMN) ongoing commercial success, or perhaps because of it, investor enthusiasm for new science mousetraps is decidedly more muted. Two recent IPOs, Pacific Biosciences (Nasdaq:PACB) and Complete Genomics (Nasdaq:GNOM), have debuted to something less than rampant applause, while Rules-Based Medicine has recently decided to postpone its public offering.

Please follow the link for the full piece:
http://stocks.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/2010/Limited-Love-For-Life-Sciences-PACB-GNOM-ILMN-WGBS-HLCS1118.aspx

2 comments:

HelicalZz said...

Stephen,

It has certainly been tough on biotech IPOs of late (not that that makes them special). Industry group BIO summarized this recently in their industry blog with a look at the 16 IPOs since the window reopened around 8/2009 prior to Complete Genomics. Not a pretty picture, with only 3 in positive territory.

http://insidebioia.com/2010/11/11/ipo-update-november-11th-2010/

I suppose one could argue this is the underwriters getting the companies as good a near term price as they could at IPO.

Stephen Simpson said...

Thanks for the link.

I know a friend of mine recently left the venture business because the (lack of health) of the IPO channel made it a really dreary job.