Fenwick securities and corporate finance co-chair Rob Freedman talked to The Wall Street Journal about the life sciences IPO market and what to look for next.
The Journal reported 15 U.S venture-backed life sciences IPOs debuted in Q3 2018, triple the amount of IPOs in the same time frame last year.
Freedman told The Journal that many companies are gearing up to go public in the next few months.
He noted that most newly public biopharma companies are still far from generating revenue, and more investors are receptive to companies at earlier stages because of major scientific and technological advances in certain therapeutic areas like gene therapy and immuno-oncology and because of increased collaboration with corporate partners.
“You see more of big pharma involved and investing in startups directly, which validates the smaller company to other investors and also means access to resources to get them further along towards commercialization,” said Freedman, who co-authored Fenwick’s Technology and Life Sciences IPO Survey.
The full article is available on The Wall Street Journal (subscription required).