Turning a Profit

The biotech industry was able to make it through the economic downturn, and even perform well last year, since "the world's established biotech centers [reached] profitability for the first time in history," says an Ernst & Young report. However, Ernst & Young's Glen Giovannetti predicts a tough funding environment for biotech, notes Donald Zuhn at Patent Docs, who adds that Giovannetti's assessment agrees with a MoneyTree report that found that between the fourth quarter of 2009 and the first quarter of 2010, biotech venture funding fell by 24 percent. "The report's silver lining concerns its finding that companies in the industry's established biotech centers of the United States, Europe, Canada, and Australia posted an aggregate net profit of $3.7 billion in 2009, which constituted a $5.5 billion increase over the $1.8 billion net loss these four markets suffered in 2008," Zuhn writes.