Private Company Edition: The average exit from biopharma investments rose from $356.8m in 2019 to $520.6m in 2020, explaining the staggering $12bn invested in the industry during the first half of this year versus $17bn for all of last year. In recent VC deals, VelosBio’s $137m series B was the largest. 

Recent regulatory events and dealmaking highlight an increase in the pace of innovation in rapid infectious disease testing.

Start-Up surveyed investments into, and exits by, private infectious disease-focused companies from 2013 through the first quarter of 2016, using data from Informa’s Pharma Intelligence's Strategic Transactions and Medtrack databases. Our review reveals an increasing amount of money going into these firms, especially those developing novel antibiotics against drug-resistant bacteria or with novel anti-infective drug development platforms.

The introduction of Apple’s ResearchKit is our top story of the year. Mobile apps and the increasing ability to take measurements of vital signs, gather information on habits and collect other phenotypic measures is rapidly changing thinking about clinical trials design.