2012 Financial Markets Preview Living Creatively
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REPRINT FROM JANUARY 2, 2012 BioCentury ™ THE BERNSTEIN REPORT ON BIOBUSINESS Article Reprint • Page 1 of 8 2012 Financial Markets Preview Living creatively By Stacy Lawrence “As the capital markets Viren Mehta of Mehta Partners. “Many Senior Writer companies don’t have any option but to For small, early stage biotech compa- continue to be difficult, raise at lower valuations.” nies, 2012 could be the year of living traditional investors are able He added: “Many companies are not creatively. able to defer any longer. The moment Although public biotechs raised more to extract terms that are comes for many companies when they funds last year than ever before, the vast have to swallow hard and accept painful majority of the money was debt financing more and more onerous.” dilution.” by established companies with marketed products. Thus while the overall numbers Todd Wyche, Brinson Patrick look good and are likely to continue to do Cash on hand so, precommercial companies will have to large and mid-cap companies (see “The Market volatility and macroeconomic get creative with their financings. 1% Effect,” page 2). risk had most buysiders sitting on the Many of these companies avoided rais- In 2011, public biotechs raised $43 sidelines through the back half of 2011. ing money in 2011 because they didn’t billion, easily eclipsing the record $33.1 Bankers are hopeful that this year will be like the valuations, but Wall Streeters say billion in 2000. But debt accounted for more stable, in which case investors might they are now running out of cash. As a 82% of the total dollars raised, compared be willing to support more deal flow dur- result, they will have to use the tricks at to only 19% in 2000 (see “Debt Domi- ing 1H12 (see “Fear Factor,” page 5). hand — underwritten offerings via an nance,” page 3). “Cash on the sidelines is at record empty S-1 filing, at-the-market offerings, Excluding debt, 2011 was lackluster at levels in generalist and fundamental funds,” and going public via Form 10 — to raise best. Development stage companies with- said John Chambers of Roth Capital Part- money at whatever valuations they can out products in registration or on the ners. He noted that several investors get. market received only 10% of the total cashed out with M&A transactions last At the same time, investors who sat on funds raised, down from 13% in 2010. In year including the $11 billion that Gilead their hands in 2H11 to protect their re- dollar terms, the number was up slightly Sciences Inc. paid for Pharmasset Inc.; turns may feel freer to pick up bargains from $4.1 billion to $4.4 billion (see “Fund- the $20.1 billion acquisition of Genzyme early in the year since they won’t be ing by Stage,” page 4). Corp. by Sanofi; and the $6.8 billion judged on their performance again until During the last biotech financing boom that Teva Pharmaceutical Industries late in 2012. in 2007, development stage companies Ltd. paid for Cephalon Inc. Companies that can’t tap the public accounted for more than one-third of the “I think we’ll see a great deal of trans- markets — or have given up — will be sector’s public financing activity. actional activity and funds looking to de- hoping for another year of robust M&A, as Last year, Phase II companies raised ploy capital; they have several quarters the deals that closed in 2011 reached an $1.8 billion, which was only 4% of total until they are evaluated again,” said Cham- all-time high both in number and transac- public biotech fundraising. Indeed, the bers. “If companies perform and deals tion value. amount raised by public Phase II compa- trade up, we could see the market open up nies actually was down from $1.9 billion pretty significantly.” in 2010. Matthias Spaenle of Oppenheimer sees Setting the stage Private Phase II companies raised $1.4 potential for the buyside to become more Development stage biotechs are get- billion. Indeed, VCs played a role in both risk tolerant in the new year. “It will be a ting a shrinking share of an expanding pie. types of offerings and are increasingly function of a better macroeconomic envi- And in absolute terms, their money raised being called upon to foot the bill for both ronment and people starting to make has remained static. The trend is likely to public and private Phase II players. money in real home runs like Pharmasset continue as long as the sector remains out “It’s a very tough environment, one of and Inhibitex,” he said. of favor among generalist investors and the tougher situations for early stage money Pharmasset shares climbed 489% last debt is a cheap and viable alternative for raising in my 25-year experience,” noted See next page BioCentury, THE BERNSTEIN REPORT ON BIOBUSINESS REPRINT FROM JANUAR 2, 2012 PAGE 2 OF 8 2012 Financial Markets Preview, from previous page The 1% effect Nine public biotechs valued above $5 billion — representing less than 2% of the more than 570 year to finish at $128.20. Fellow HCV play companies tracked by BioCentury — pulled in more than two-thirds ($29.1 billion) of the record Inhibitex Inc. was up 321% to $10.94 $43 billion raised in the public markets in 2011. All the money raised by the nine came from debt on positive Phase Ib data and investor deals. expectations that it, too, might be ac- quired. The nine companies were Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ:AMGN); Gilead Sciences Inc. Given the cash sitting in the 75 or so (NASDAQ:GILD); Illumina Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN); Laboratory Corp. of America Holdings active biotech funds, Michael Brinkman of (NYSE:LH), which acquired Orchid Cellmark Inc. last year; Quest Diagnostics Inc. (NYSE:DGX), Jefferies said he expects a busy calendar in which acquired Celera Corp. last year; Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (NASDAQ:TEVA); the first quarter, as a number of his clients UCB Group (Euronext:UCB); Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. (TSX:VRX; are planning significant transactions. NYSE:VRX); and Warner Chilcott plc (NASDAQ:WCRX). The analysis based on market caps “For companies that are in Phase III or at the end of 2010. (A) More than 370 companies, including thinly traded securities on OTC later, there’s tremendous access to capi- Bulletin Board and Pink Sheets; Source: BCIQ: BioCentury Online Intelligence tal. For companies that are earlier stage, it’s much more challenging,” he said. Debt [left axis] Equity [left axis] No. of cos [right axis] Among development stage companies, buysiders are looking for at least two $40 400 years of cash and strong proof of concept data, along with an undeniable market need. $30 300 “The pool of investors who are willing to write a check before they see random- ofNo. cos ized data is very small, and they will demand punitive valuations to compen- $20 200 sate for risk,” said RBC’s Andrew Singer. Raised $B For these companies, financing pros- pects remain grim. $10 100 “We met with a company that has a Phase III program to fund — they need $50 million to fund two Phase III trials, and $0 0 their market cap is less than $50 million,” <$200M (A) $200-$499M $500-$999M $1B-$4.9B >=$5B said Josh Muntner of ThinkEquity. “It’s hard to see how they’ll pay for the trials.” Market cap tiers Muntner said the company is caught in a Catch-22: investors don’t want to buy were only a dozen biotech companies “Today, some of the larger biotechnol- stock until the company has money in the with market caps north of $1 billion,” said ogy funds are managing billions of dollars bank, but the company can’t get money David Strupp of Rodman & Renshaw. “If of assets,” Strupp noted. “A fund of that until investors will buy the stock. you were a biotechnology investor 15 size can’t move the needle investing in a years ago, you needed to invest in smaller $50 million market cap company. Many cap, development stage companies in or- investors are willing to miss the potential Victim of success der to maintain a diversified portfolio. for significant upside and would prefer to Adding to the financing challenge is Now there’s such a wealth of opportunity buy into a de-risked story at loftier valu- the fact there are more options than ever in de-risked, larger-cap companies that ations.” for biotech buysiders. The ranks of com- either have revenues or a much later- Stuart Duty of Piper Jaffray agreed. He panies over $1 billion have grown, as have stage development pipeline.” noted that even sector specialists “can those with marketed products and actual Generalist funds are typically looking invest an entire portfolio and not have a revenue. only at the 61 companies with market development stage company in it.” “I can remember in 1998 when there caps of $1 billion of more. See next page DAVID FLORES KAREN BERNSTEIN, Ph.D. BioCentury® President & CEO Chairman & Editor-in-Chief T HE BERNSTEIN REPORT ON BIOB USINESS BioCentury®, The BioCentury 100, and The Clear Route are trademarks of BIOCENTURY PUBLICATIONS INC. PO Box 1246 All contents © Copyright 2012, BIOCENTURY PUBLICATIONS INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this San Carlos CA 94070-1246 publication may be reproduced, photocopied or reproduced in any form, retransmitted, or stored in a Voice: 650-595-5333 retrieval system without prior written consent of the publisher. Fax: 650-595-5589 www.biocentury.com The contents of this publication are gathered from sources believed to be reliable, but in any case are not warranted by the publisher for a particular use or purpose.