Biotech IPOs Up 22% Since "Bubble" Year of 2000, Shows New Data

Junary 19, 2015
By Riley McDermid, BioSpace.com Breaking News Sr. Editor

Longtime biotech exec and industry guru Stelios Papadopoulos released data Monday showing that 2014 had 22 percent more biotech IPOs than the infamous “bubble” year of 2000, a major metric market watchers will be eyeing as they head boisterously into a new boom year.

That data found that there were an “astonishing” 82 biotech IPOs in 2014, a massive increase from the 67 IPOs 2000. But deal size overall was smaller, with capital raised in 2014 clocking in at $5.5 billion, compared to $5.7 billion in 2000.

In his report were multiple charts showing the industry’s IPOs climb (see images).





Papadopoulos has been collecting annual biotech IPO data by hand since 1979—a means of data collection most analysts find to be more meticulous and accurate than larger “number crunching” firms like Reuters or Bloomberg that sometimes miss deals.

“I consider his data the definitive source of biotech IPO information,” wrote ISI Evercore analyst Mark Schoenebaum in a note to investors that parsed the data. “I have found many other sources, including Bloomberg, to be inaccurate.”

Papadopoulos is perhaps best known as the chairman of Biogen Idec and the former managing director of life sciences investment banking division at SG Cowen Securities Corp, from which he retired in August 2006. In 1987, Papadopoulos served as the vice president at the equity research department at Drexel Burnham Lambert, and was also managing director of Cowen and Company.

Prior to that he was the co-founder of Exelixis and Anadys Pharmaceiticals, as well as chairman of Regulus Therapeutics, SG Americas Securities, vice chairman of BG Medicine, Inc. and board member at Neuronyx, Inc. He was also a director at GenVec Inc., Regulus Therapeutics and Joule Biotechnologies.