The US "biotech century" began with a boom in 2000, says Burrill

The US biotechnology industry had a phenomenal year in 2000, breakingall prior records in terms of financing, according to merchant bank Burrill & Co in its review of the year. The market capitalization for the industry grew from $311 billion at the end of 1999 to $429 billion by the end of 2000, an increase of 38%.

The market capitalization had, in fact, peaked at more than $500 billion by mid-March 2000, but experienced its largest-ever one-day loss in value ($109 billion) after former US President Bill Clinton and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair made comments regarding the rights to intellectual property arising from the study of the human genome (Marketletter March 20, 2000). This dampened the euphoria surrounding the announcement by Celera Genomics and the Human Genome Project, in June, that the genome had been fully sequenced, claimed by many to be one of mankind's greatest achievements.

For the year, Burrill's major biotechnology indices (Select, Large-cap and Mid-cap) were all up substantially (36%, 41% and 40%, respectively). Only the Agbio (down 6%) and Genomics indices (down 9%) underperformed the sector; with the tremendous run-up in the genomics valuations mid-year (up 182% at its peak), profit-taking clearly played a role at year-end, and enthusiasm waned for the genomics companies as investors questioned whether they would all be able to build profitable businesses, according to Burrill.