Life Sciences Snapshot – A Quarterly Report on Financing Trends – Q2 2021

Key Takeaways

This edition of Orrick’s series of life sciences publications breaks down the drivers of record venture investment into US-based life sciences companies last year. Key findings include:

• US-based life sciences companies closed 465 venture deals in Q1 2021 for a quarterly record value of $12.2 billion. Even more so than in past years, the promise of personalized medicine seems more feasible, given increasingly powerful diagnostic platforms and the explosion in home-based point-of-care virtual health and testing kits for general health concerns.
• Investors are plowing into the sector with such fervor that deal sizes and valuations are all marking new highs, even given significant growth in the past few years.
• Liquidity remains strong, with the sector securing $17.4 billion across 51 events in Q1 2021; the SPAC phenomenon has begun to yield a handful of exits for life sciences companies.
• Investment levels will likely sustain, as all indicators continue to remain promising, from the macro to the cyclical.