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Finance Watch: Clouds Still Darken Biopharma Sector Despite Sunny Forecasts

Job Cuts, Pipeline Prioritizations Persist In 2024

 
• By Mandy Jackson

Restructuring Edition: The industry emerged from the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference feeling renewed confidence about deal-making and financing, but drug developers continue to run short on cash or cut programs and jobs before the money runs out, including Cara, PMV and Ikena.

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• Source: Shutterstock

Drug developers and investors left San Francisco after the recent J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference feeling optimistic about prospects for returns on biopharmaceutical investments, certain that forthcoming declines in interest rates and big pharma’s increased appetite for deals would prompt specialist and generalist investors alike to fund the industry again once they saw big gains from mergers and acquisitions activity.

There are early signs that such sunny forecasts for 2024 are coming true, with several biopharma companies already lined up to launch initial public offerings this year. (Also see "Finance Watch: Kyverna, Alto Offerings Could Land In IPO Investors’ Sweet Spot" - Scrip, 17 January, 2024.) However, while stock valuations began to improve in December, venture capital financings plunged in the fourth quarter of last year, signaling that the recovery for private companies still may be a ways off

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