Locust Walk Managing Director, Chris Ehrlich will be the featured speaker at next week’s BioScience Forum in San Francisco. He will be discussing “Recent Trends in the Biopharma Financing and Licensing Market” on Wednesday, May 25. The evening will consist of networking, dinner and Ehrlich’s presentation.

Three years of strong financial performance in healthcare have generated over $50 billion in potential value back to investors. Last year saw the most capital invested in healthcare companies compared to any other year. The key driver in this performance, record investment in biopharma, saw the largest share of crossover investment by non-traditional biotech investors participating in large mezzanine rounds. The past three years have also seen the largest sustained and most prosperous IPO bull market in healthcare, but the IPO markets have dipped in the beginning of the new year.

When public markets taper off, we start to see spikes elsewhere, such as in partnering activities. Total M&A deal values have reached a decade-high, and partnering deals spiked both in number and value toward the end of 2015 into 2016. Licensing deals have also seen an upward trend in value, with up-front payouts increasing for large and small deals alike. The overall outlook for biopharma is positive, as these exits and successes have led to higher returns and greater investor confidence. Timely and successful fundraising cycles mean venture healthcare has enough capital to support existing investments and new financings, which will reinforce biotech companies as the IPO market declines and non-traditional crossover investors pull away.

Chris will analyze these and other key trends and data from 2015 in the financing and licensing markets of biopharma, and provide his outlook on the opportunities and challenges the biotechnology industry is facing in 2016.

Click here for more information about the event: http://www.biosf.org/