New Data in Canada: BIOTECanada-PwC 2009 Life Sciences Forecast

The BIOTECanada-PricewaterhouseCoopers 2009 Canadian Life Sciences Forecast was released today.

The Forecast was produced from data gathered in October and November 2008, so is (unsurprisingly) a bit bleak, but there are a few bright spots to be found:

• Canadian companies are increasingly flexible about exit scenarios.  In the 2009 Forecast, 66% of firms looked to mergers (down from 80% in 2007), while 48% looked to co-development partnerships and 46% saw licensing or selling IP as their success strategy.
• Some problems were reduced from levels reported in 2007:
  • Only 26% of respondents identified “attracting and retaining key employees” as one of the three most challenging issues, down from 39% in 2007;
  • In 2007, 33% of respondents identified “attracting a licensing or strategic partner” as most challenging, which was down to 22%  in 2009; and
  • 21% instead of 29% of respondents cited “managing the regulatory process.”
• Finally, there was a 66% increase in the number of respondents who believed “protecting intellectual property” would be a top-three challenge, which is excellent news … at least for lawyers.

The predominant issue weighing on the minds of respondents was clearly access to capital:

• Sixty-one percent of respondents ranked “increased Canadian venture capital” as critical to the industry; and
• While the overall percentage of companies expecting to raise between $10 million and $100 million in their next round remained the same as it was in 2007, the percentage expecting between $10 and $25 million tripled while the percentage expecting betwen $25 and $100 million was cut nearly in half.

The really good news about this, though, is that since the survey was taken last Fall, over $1 billion in venture investment funding has been budgeted in Ontario and Québec, and the Ontario Venture Capital Fund has already made several commitments … some of which are bound to end up with biotech VCs, right? Right?? Stay tuned.