USD 3.3B of VC/PE investment in lifesciences firms in Sep’21

We recorded 79 VC/PE transactions pertaining to the global life sciences sector for September 2021, aggregating to a sum of USD 3.3B, as against 96 transactions and USD5.6B in Sep’20.

The USA recorded 49 transactions aggregating to a total investment of USD 2.2B. China reported a totally out of character investment of USD 288m from 5 VC/PE transactions, much less than are normally reported. It is not clear what explains this massive drop in China activity. Rest of the world accounted for 26 transactions aggregating to USD756m.

In the first nine months of 2021, a total of USD50B of VC/PE investment has flown into lifesciences sector. US has accounted for 57% of VC/PE transactions in lifesciences space, pulling in USD28B of investment; followed by China which has seen USD10.72B of investment, accounting for 22% of the global total.

Sep’21 saw an inexplicable dip in funding activity in China. It is not clear if investor sentiment towards LiveScience’s is impacted by the negative news around China’s internet and edutech sectors. Total fund raise – VC + IPO – was just $488m, amongst the lowest figures in the last 30 months.

While fund raising was slow, cross border strategic deal activity was fairly robust, with 10 deals recorded in Sep’21. In 9m2021, 82 cross border transactions like inlicensing / outlicensing / JVs were recorded, in comparison to 69 such transactions in 9m2020.

The top fund-raising transactions for Sep’21:

  • Opentrons, USA, (USD200m), Series C
  • TrialSpark, USA (USD 156m), Series C
  • Elligo Health Research, USA, (USD 135m), Series E
  • Touchlight, UK (USD 125m)
  • Asher Bio, USA (USD 108m), Series B

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