Polar Capital's Pinniger: The next generation of biotech leaders

'Wobbling risk appetite'

While it is fair to say the biotech sector has started to feel the effects of a softening of investor risk appetite, the muted investor appetite for biotech is also perhaps due to the sector entering something of a transitional phase.

The larger commercial-stage companies that led the sector's strong performance over the past few years have matured to resemble their slower-growing pharmaceutical peers.  In contrast, investor enthusiasm for early-stage companies with exciting drug discovery and development technologies leveraging cellular and genetic engineering techniques has exploded. This was partly driven by suggestions of early breakthrough clinical trial results, and partly by aggressive multi-billion dollar M&A activity. Industry Voice: Biotechnology - new price triggers, low valuations Cash-rich/R&D pi...