It was the best of all pos­si­ble worlds in the worst of all times for biotech in 2020. What comes now?

SVB Leerink’s Ge­of­frey Porges ran the num­bers for biotech IPOs for all of 2020 and found that the in­dus­try rang out the old year with a record $13.5 bil­lion raised from a chart-top­ping 81 IPOs. Throw in 256 fol­low-ons with ea­ger in­vestors and you can add an­oth­er $41.1 bil­lion in fresh cap­i­tal for R&D work.

The num­bers didn’t just edge out what we’ve been see­ing in the last few years, which were strong to be­gin with. Some of these to­tals blow the old av­er­ages out of the wa­ter. Notes Porges:

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