Biotech sector remains buoyant despite market turmoil in first half, says Burrill

The biotechnology industry's report card for the first half of the year contains surprisingly good grades for its performance on the capital markets, and for partnering and venture capital deal making, but all other forms of financing did not fare as well, particularly regard to initial public offerings, the new monthly Burrill Biotechnology Report finds.

"With the first half of the year dominated by macro-economic factors such as inflation, recession, credit market turmoil and escalating oil prices it is not surprising that biotech IPOs were virtually non-existent with only one biotech IPO to date in 2008," said Steven Burrill, chief executive, Burrill & Co, a San Francisco, USA-based global life sciences firm with activities in venture capital, private equity, merchant banking and media."

The biotechnology sector did, however, outperform the broader stock market indices in the first half of the year even factoring in a brutal month of June for the capital markets where the Burrill Biotech Select Index, a price-weighted index tracking 20 of biotechnology's "blue chip" companies finished down 1.3%, with the Dow falling 10% and the Nasdaq dropping 9%.