6 top VCs give their best 2019 predictions for healthcare, from a biotech correction to a ‘shadow cash economy’ stepping into the light

Venrock partner Camille Samuels is ready to get back to the basics in biotech.

“I’m enthused by the correction,” Samuels told Business Insider. Over the past five years, the Nasdaq biotech index is up 25%, though recently stocks have taken a tumble, putting them into correction territory, a term that refers to a 10% or greater decline from a stock’s most recent peak.

In 2019, she said, she’s anticipating a return to the basic biotech-business model. That is, instead of a broad platform with six or more potential drugs in the works, a more straightforward focus on one or two lead programs that a company knows super well.

The correction in turn will drive that because there will be less available capital pouring into early-stage companies, forcing them to have a more zoomed-in approach.

“I remain an optimist on the fundamentals of biotech, but the industry has gotten so enthusiastic as to be undisciplined,” Samuels said.

On the policy side, Samuels said she expects to see the biopharma industry make a concession on drug pricing to appease the Trump administration. That said, she doesn’t expect it to have broad implications.

Another prediction: “Moderna will exit at a $3 billion valuation next year.”

Moderna debuted on the public market on December 7 after raising more than $600 million in the biggest IPO in biotech history. While the IPO valued Moderna at $7.5 billion, it’s currently trading well below its IPO price, with a market value of $5 billion.

Samuels expects that to drop even further by the end of 2019, to a market value of $3 billion.

“It’s hard for me, looking at their pipeline, to figure out why they’re valued five times, six times [as much as] other companies with the same pipeline,” Samuels said.

Lastly, she sees exhaustion with financing cancer-drug makers sinking in, with interest picking up for other diseases that have been left at the wayside.

Two of the scientific areas she’s most interested in at the moment: mitochondrial RNA-based medicines and antiaging biology, particularly a subsection she refers to as “inflamm-aging.”

Read More



from Trend News Web http://bit.ly/2AmtXmY

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Allred: Tape appears to show R. Kelly sexually abusing girls

A man who said he was cleaning out an old videotape collection found what he thought was a recording of R&B singer R. Kelly in concert, but instead turned out to show a man who appeared to be Kelly sexually abusing girls, he and his attorney said Sunday. The man then turned the tape over to law enforcement, according to attorney Gloria Allred. She and her client, Gary Dennis, would not discuss the specifics of the tape during a news conference in New York. But Allred said it appears to show a separate incident from the 10 counts of aggravated sexual abuse that Kelly faces in Chicago, though she acknowledged she could not be “100 percent certain” that the man in the tape is Kelly. Steve Greenberg, an attorney for Kelly, noted that lack of certainty. “The doubt here is self-evident, with reporting that the man on the tape kinda, sorta looks like R. Kelly,” Greenberg said Sunday in an email. “That doesn’t make it him. It is not him.” The lawyer also said Kelly “denies that he is
Read more

Ranking Every No. 1 NBA Draft Pick from the Last 30 Years

Image
Gary Dineen/Getty Images 15. Larry Johnson, Charlotte Hornets, 1991 Johnson, an athletic marvel, came into the league with incalculable potential. He was Rookie of the Year in 1992, made the All-Star team in his second season and signed a 12-year, $84 million contract in 1993 that was the   largest   in league history at the time. Back problems sapped his bounce, but Johnson developed skills to compensate. The power forward shot 38.6 percent from deep and averaged 18.8 points, 7.2 rebounds and 4.6 assists in 1994-95 while making his second All-Star team. He was just as good the next year, posting averages of 20.5 points, 8.4 rebounds and 4.4 assists. Though decline set in following his move to the Knicks in 1996, Johnson was an effective player for the balance of his 10-year career. He ranks   10th   among No. 1 picks in the last 30 years with 69.7 win shares.          14. John Wall , Washington Wizards, 2010 Wall’s average of 9.2 assists is tops on our list, and his 1.7 ste
Read more

Attacks and bodyguards: The price of being a Colombian journalist

Image
Caucasia, Colombia – Leiderman Ortiz’s mother, sister, brother and nephew were visiting him in Caucasia in May 2010 when a loud blast went off outside the house where they were asleep. “I jumped out of my bed and started shouting, ‘Stay down, don’t move’,” Ortiz said. “My poor mother was screaming. She was terrified.” Unlike many others who have been targeted by the regular grenade attacks in Caucasia, a small city about 670km north of the Colombian capital Bogota, Ortiz isn’t a criminal. He writes about them. And the 2010 attack was the third of at least five known attempts or suspected attempts on the 45-year-old’s life. The first occurred in 2009 in Medellin when he was leaving an office and an armed individual was waiting for him. Ortiz saw the individual and called the police. The next year, the 2010 grenade attack occurred. Two days after that attack, another grenade was thrown into his garden. The following year, at least two suspected hitmen were paid to follow Ortiz, but
Read more