With so much money and so many promises in biotech, somethings got to go bust. And in 2019, a lot did.

Although last year saw the second-most new drug approvals since 1997, it also saw more biotechs file for bankruptcy than in any year since 2011: 14, if you include disgraced giant Purdue Pharma. And thats not including all the reverse mergers, which led to the disappearance of a host of failed biotechs: Proteon, NewLink, Conatus and Vical, among many others.

Bankruptcies in biotech are generally rare. Rarer still in the absence of a recession and with the industry still awash in cash. Like every year, a couple of biotechs simply ran out of money as their main asset fizzled. But other failures can be read as a stress-test for the industrys blind spots and vulnerabilities in a year where federal investigators pursued opioid manufacturers and biotech execs joined public health experts in raising alarms about the state of antibiotics research. Those failures include:

The biotechs had collectively raised at least $2 billion since 2010, according to data from Deal Formas Chris Dokomajilar. Well go through each.

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The FDA unveils a new regulatory framework to speed along gene therapies, rewarding the leading players - Endpoints News