Finance Watch: Biotech Stocks Down, But Holding Up Better Than Broader Indices

Public Company Edition: Benefitting from hope that biopharma interventions will help the coronavirus pandemic, the industry is faring better than others in the stock market, including the ability to launch IPOs. Also, BridgeBio leads recent financings and PDL is on track to dissolve by year-end.

The biopharmaceutical industry has risen to the challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic with dozens of vaccine and therapeutic candidates in development, helping biopharma stocks outperform stocks in many other industries.

Even with a correction on 24 March, the Nasdaq is down 17.3% year-to-date, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average has plunged 27.5% in 2020 based on business disruptions and uncertainty caused by widespread quarantines to prevent the spread of COVID-19. But while biopharma companies have revealed coronavirus-related delays and the Nasdaq Biotechnology Index (NBI) is down significantly, the NBI’s 14.6% year-to-date drop as of 24 March is not as bad as the declines in broader US stock indices

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