The flow of venture capital into biopharmaceutical companies has been astonishing – breaking the prior record by a wide margin in 2020 – and, so far, 2021 looks like it is on track to leave a big gap between last year’s and this year’s fundraising total.
Pitchbook and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) reported in their quarterly Venture Monitor report that 298 biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies raised $10.5bn during the first quarter of 2021 – more than any quarter in 2020 when biopharma companies raised $28.5bn (revised from a previously reported $27.4bn total), beating the prior full-year record of $20.1bn in 2018 by $8.4bn
Venture capital mega-deals of $100m or more were a big contributor to the difference between the first three months of 2020 and 2021. The average amount raised by 259 biopharma companies that brought in $5