Biotech Investors Worried By Possible Bubble

The Internet bubble. The optics bubble. The biotech bubble?

With the dramatic upturn in life sciences investments in the past year, longtime biotech investors fear that a glut of capital will create another bubble of investment into too many me-too startups.

The numbers are impressive-or depressing, depending on your point of view. The life sciences sector accounted for 22% of all venture investments last year, up from 13% a year earlier, and ahead of investments in software, telecommunications, and networking, according to the annual PricewaterhouseCoopers/Venture Economics/NVCA MoneyTree Survey. The last time that life sciences accounted for such a large portion of overall venture funding was seven years ago. Venture capitalists pumped a total of $4.7 billion into the sector last year, with $2.8 billion going to biotechnology and $1.9 billion going to medical devices.

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