“As long as the quality of the data is good, it will definitely attract the attention of investors. US venture capital (VC) not only invests in US companies. If domestic bio companies have secured data comparable to that of US pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, they need to actively consider entering foreign markets. “
Dongmin Yoon, CEO of Solasta Ventures, made this announcement at the ‘Strategy Seminar for Biostartups to Enter the Global Market’ held by the Korea Health Industry Development Institute and the Chungbuk Creative Economy Innovation Center on the 19th . Solasta Ventures is an American subsidiary of Aju IB Investment.
At the seminar, CEO Yoon presented ‘the current status of US bioinvestment and successful investment attraction strategies’. CEO Yoon said, “Solasta Ventures is a venture capital (VC) based in Boston. Over the past 10 years, we have invested in 30 biotechs. Some biotechs have successfully exited (withdrawn investment). “We invest mainly in biotechnology development. At the moment, we are focusing on finding new investment targets.”
“Most analysts predict that the stock market will be bad until the second half of this year, and (the stock market) expects to rebound from the beginning of 2024,” he said. “However, nobody knows at what point it will rebound. “The stock market could continue to be bad over the next few months, but if we wait a little longer, there is a chance that the market will improve.”
“In the case of biotechnology, investors look very selective when investing. For example, if there are three companies in a particular field, investors tend to flock to the biotech with the highest potential for success,” he said. Investing means investing in early stage companies. If a large amount of money is not received in the Series A stage, another funding must be received after 1-2 years.
“During the first quarter of this year, two or three biotechs were listed on NASDAQ, but during the first half of next year, IPOs (initial public offerings) are expected to progress at the same level as in previous years. with financial power stepping into M&A. The M&A market is active because you can get excellent assets with good valuations in a less competitive environment,” he said.
CEO Yoon said, “From the first half of this year, (investors) showed constant interest in the therapeutic area, such as oncology and autoimmune diseases. In particular, interest in metabolic diseases has increased significantly this year. Eli Lilly , Novo Nordisk has made successful cases such as non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and obesity treatment. Rare diseases are also an area of interest.”
He also said, “Investors are interested in modal investments to discover next generation delivery mechanisms,” and added, “We are eyeing gene editing technologies after CRISPR.
Regarding the future US bio-investment market, he said, “Many analysts predict that the market will rebound within a year. No. 1 companies in each field tend to dominate the fundraising market.” (Research and Development) strategies are often reviewed. We need to. look closely at what area of R&D each bio company is focusing on.”
