Venture capital (VC) investments in biotechs, defined as biomedicine firms, fell 13.6% to a nine-year low of $3,152 million in 2012, according to data from BioCentury. US financing declined 4%, while European financing plummeted 31%. Of the 235 rounds of financings for “innovative biotech,’’ only 11 were for start-ups. Product development–stage firms garnered the largest number of financing rounds at 46 and the largest share of total investments at 82%. The therapeutic modalities attracting the highest investments were protein therapeutics ($798 million) and small molecules ($622 million). The number of active VC firms declined 8.0% last year to 196. The number of Chinese, European and US biotechs acquired declined 50% to 16. Also contributing to a decline in investing was an influx of university spin-outs.

Source: Nature Biotechnology