For the second month in a row, China’s biotech companies attracted more than USD1B of venture capital investment. Biotech investments crossed USD1B for the first time in April’20. Hence, May is the second consecutive month where VC/PE investments in biotech have crossed USD1B.
In terms of amout invested, China inching closer to US. To put this in perspective, monthly investment in lifesciences sector in the USA averages around USD 1.5B. Some of it goes into digital health startups which is strictly not biotech. China’s investments in the last few months have been almost exclusively in pre-revenue biotech startups.
The chart below shows the global mix of VC/PE investments in Lifesciences sector over the last 3 years. As can be be seen China’s share is increasing.
(to clarify – we are using Lifesciences as overall term; segments included area – biotech, healthcare services, digital health, health-tech, diagnostics, devices, formulations and CRMO)