The A-List: 2006's Trend-Shaping Series A Financings

By Christopher Morrison and Nancy Dvorin

Although difficult public financing markets continue to weigh on VC portfolios, particularly in biopharmaceuticals, 2006 demonstrated that the private M&A activity seen in 2005 was hardly a blip on the radar. As pharma’s pipeline problems remain center stage, VCs are enjoying solid M&A returns across the health care spectrum and in both the product and platform arenas—particularly as Big Pharma continues to play catch-up in large molecules of various stripes