Biotech innovation key to disease mitigation.

Biotech companies are crucial to and at the forefront of the development of transformative and innovative new treatments that result in better patient outcomes. In fact, according to an industry report by Ernst and Young from 2022, small to midcap biotech companies are responsible for a growing number and share of FDA approvals.(1) To thrive, biotech companies must be able to navigate complex and high-risk, high-reward situations.

Advancements in the exciting field of gene therapy, as an example, are largely driven by the biotech industry, and thanks to the innovative new medicines being discovered and developed by biotech companies, patients with genetic disorders now have more and better treatment options.2-4 Biotech companies are helping to uncover underlying causes of diseases, better understand how to slow disease progression, and maybe even find cures for certain conditions. But with high reward comes high risk.

The risk comes not least in funding the complex, unpredictable, expensive, and time-consuming business of biotech. Research and development take time and require substantial investments – on average it takes more than a decade to bring a drug to market and costs close to USD 2 billion.5,6 This is an expensive waiting game for many shareholders who would like to see a faster return on their investment.