实验室的危机： 生物技术公司倒闭潮来临

刚必复

实验室的危机： 生物技术公司倒闭潮来临

Crisis In The Lab: Biotech Bankruptcies Are Looming
实验室危机：生物技术公司倒闭潮来临

The global economic crisis has cut funding for biotechs to the lowest level in a decade, triggering bankruptcies and threatening development of drugs based on biomedical breakthroughs, Bloomberg News writes.
全球经济危机使得生物技术资金削减到近十年来最低水平，触发公司倒闭，这也威胁了以生物医学突破为基础的药物的发展。彭博新闻报道。
In the past month, at least five biotechs filed for bankruptcy. Those at highest risk have experimental compounds moving into costly human research. The amount raised this year by biotechs fell by $9.7 billion through September, or 54 percent, compared with the same period in 2007, according to Burrill & Company, a life sciences investment bank. That may mean work on dozens of potential treatments will stall or die as workers are fired and early research projects are shelves, Bloomberg writes.
在过去几个月里，至少有五家生物技术公司申请了破产。具有高危的实验化合物进入了昂贵的人力研究。根据博乐公司（生命科学投资银行）介绍，与2007年同期比较，今年九月生物技术提高的总量下降到97亿美元，或54%。彭博报道，这可能意味着十几个潜在的工作处理会搁置或停止，工人被解雇，早期研究束之高搁。
“I’m looking down the barrel of a gun,” says Tom Mathers, ceo at Peptimmune, a privately held, six-year-old biotech in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that is struggling to pay for clinical trials of a multiple sclerosis drug. He cut staff by more than half to 22 people, moved to smaller offices to conserve $6.5 million on hand and is delaying research on new drugs for Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s.
“我正期待着解救的资金”。一位在马萨诸塞州剑桥私人持股6年的Peptimmune首席执行官，汤姆马瑟斯说，他正在努力支付一种治疗多发性硬化症药物的临床试验。他裁减了一半到22人左右的公司职员，搬到一个小一些的办事处，以节省650万美元，并正在延迟阿乐茨海默氏病和帕金森氏病的新药研究。
US biotechs are raising less cash than they have in a decade, according to Burrill. Financing fell to $8.2 billion through September, from $17.9 billion last year. Venture capital funding fell 16 percent, to $2.9 billion, Bloomberg writes.
根据博乐报道，美国生物技术公司在这十年内现金提高低于以前。融资从去年17.9亿美元下降到九月份的8.2亿美元。彭博报道，主要风险投资下降16%，到2.9亿美元。
“For the first time in the history of the biotech industry, you’re going to see unprecedented levels of bankruptcies and dissolutions,” David Strupp, managing director in the life sciences group at Canaccord Adams, a research and investment bank, tells Bloomberg. “This all will play out in the next six to nine months.”
“这在生物技术工业历史上是第一次，你们将要看到的是史无前例的破产和解散”。研究投资银行Canaccord Adams，生命科学组总经理大卫strupp告诉彭博：“这一切都会在未来六至九个月发生。”
Biotech bankruptcies have been rare because struggling companies often dodged trouble through mergers, licensing or development deals, or through investors willing to make cash infusions, he adds. Now, though, a large number are “not cycling out of this queue,” Strupp explains to Bloomberg. “Wall Street won’t finance them, and the pharmaceutical industry can’t buy all of them. They keep marching forward without the ability to get saved.”
生物技术公司破产已经很少见。因为处于努力的公司往往通过兼并、注册或开发交易来回避问题，或通过投资者愿意拿出巨额现金注入，他补充说。目前，一大批公司不在“资金链周期性循环里面”，strupp对彭博解释道。“华尔街不会资助他们，制药工业不能买到全部。由于没有能力得到保存，他们只能继续保持前进。
Peptimmune’s most advanced drug, PI-2301, is a multiple sclerosis treatment designed to be taken weekly. It would compete with Teva Pharmaceutical’s daily treatment Copaxone, which generated $1.7 billion in sales last year. Peptimmune is counting on positive data from a study due in 2009 to show its drug is better than Copaxone. “If the multiple sclerosis program doesn’t do well, it will be very difficult for this company to raise money,” Mathers tells Bloomberg.
Peptimmune公司最先进的药物PI-2301是每周服用治疗多发性硬化症药物。它与泰华医药去年销售额17亿美元的日常治疗药Copaxone竞争。Peptimmune指望利好数据的一项研究，于2009年以显示其药物优于Copaxone。“如果多发性硬化程序不做好，这将对公司筹集资金是非常困难的，”阿姆告诉彭博。

刚必复

And Bloomberg makes an interesting point: Four of six MS treatments approved by the FDA were developed by biotechs.
博彭做了一个很有趣的调查：六家中有四家治疗多发性硬化症的药物由FDA认可，这些生物技术公司得到发展。
Peptimmune, with no products on the market, has raised and spent about $85 million. Biotechs without products on the market, or those unable to access equity markets by selling shares, are the ones in most need of cash to fund clinical studies. Yet biotech initial public offerings have almost disappeared, with just one, for $5.8 million, so far in 2008. That’s down from 28 IPOs that raised $1.7 billion last year and from 66 in 2000 that garnered $6.5 billion, Bloomberg writes.
Peptimmune没有产品在市场上，它已提出并花费了8500万美元。没有产品在市场上的生物技术公司，或者那些无法通过出售股票获得公平市场的公司，才是最需要现金资助临床研究的公司。然而至2008年，生物科技首次公开募股已经几乎消失，除了一个为580万美元。彭博写道，从去年28 IPOs募集到1.7亿美元，从2000年获得6.5 亿美元。
The most likely to seek bankruptcy are those with less than six months of cash on hand, just a few drugs in development and no definitive clinical data to attract a funding partner, Andrew Busser, principal at Symphony Capital, tells Bloomberg. Twenty-five percent of the 370 public US biotechs have less than six months of cash, according to data compiled by the BIO trade group.
最有可能寻求破产保护的是那些少于六个月手头现金的公司，仅仅只有一些处于研制的药物和没有确切临床数据来吸引投资伙伴的公司，Symphony资产主要负责人安德鲁布瑟告诉彭博。根据生物贸易集团汇编资料，370个公共美国生物技术中的21.5%已不到6个月的现金
A Darwinian pruning of the weakest is inevitable, and isn’t necessarily to be mourned, according to Peter Wysong, a health care investment banker for Natixis Bleichroeder. “Most people would probably say there have been too many biotechnology companies that have been like the walking dead,” he tells Bloomberg. “The deaths will be concentrated among companies that have little to offer.”
一个最弱的达尔文式的削减是不可避免的，不一定需要哀悼，据Natixis Bleichroeder卫生保健投资银行业者彼得威尔森表明。他告诉彭博：“大多数人可能会说有太多的生物技术公司已经是走向灭亡，这种灭亡将会集中在那些没有提供资金的公司。”
Earlier this month, MicroIslet, a San Diego developer of diabetes treatments, and Accentia ***aceuticals, of Tampa, Florida, sought bankruptcy protection to reorganize, each citing an inability to raise money.
这个月初，圣地亚戈研发治疗糖尿病的MicroIslet、Accentia ***aceuticals的研发者在佛罗里达州坦帕市，申请破产保护进行重组，其每个理由都无法筹集资金。
MicroIslet spent $50 million during the past decade developing an experimental treatment for Type 1 diabetes that would involve transplanting insulin-producing cells harvested from the pancreas of pigs into diabetics to allow them to forego insulin injections. The treatment, tested in animals but not in humans, came from technology developed at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.
MicroIslet在过去十几年研发1型糖尿病的实验室治疗期间花了5000万美元，这包括移植从猪胰腺收集的产生胰岛素细胞到糖尿病患者，让糖尿病患者放弃注射胰岛素。这项来自国家美国北卡罗莱纳州杜克大学的先进治疗技术，在动物身上进行了试验，但是没有用于人身上。
With the company $3 million in debt and needing millions more to begin clinical studies, private investors turned away, leaving MicroIslet without money for human tests, according to ceo Michael Andrews. “We’re at a stage that a lot of companies are in, where it’s time to raise money but there’s no clinical data and you’re not a brand new company coming out of academia,” he tells Bloomberg. “I suspect there will be a number of companies that will go down this path.”
随着公司300万美元的俩务，需要数百万人开始临床研究，私人投资者拒之门外，使microislet没有钱提供人体试验，根据首席执行官迈克尔安鲁说，“我们正处于一个很多公司都在处的阶段，这个阶段需要筹集资金，但没有临床数据，你也不是一个全新的公司走出学术界，”他告诉彭博，“我怀疑会有一些公司将沿着这条路走下去。”
In October, AtheroGenics, which was developing a diabetes drug, filed for bankruptcy after defaulting on $302 million in debt the previous month. Orchestra Therapeutics also filed last month. The long-struggling company was co-founded in 1986 by the late Jonas Salk, the polio-vaccine developer who sought to find a way to immunize patients against AIDS, Bloomberg points out.
去年十月，AtheroGenics，这是一个制定糖尿病的药物，申请破产后拖欠3.02亿美元债务到前一个月。AtheroGenics上个月也申请治疗。这个长期奋斗的公司在1986年由已故乔纳斯索尔克共同创建，这个脊髓灰质炎疫苗的发明者试图找到一个能免疫接种艾滋病患者的方法。
Recently, Amylin Pharmaceuticals announced plans to cut 16 percent of its workforce, or about 340 employees, to try to save $80 million in 2009. And Cell Genesys halted work on a prostate cancer med after deaths were reported in a study, and will fire 230 workers, or 80 percent of its workers, by year-end, Bloomberg reminds us.
最近，胰淀素制药公司宣布，计划栽员16%的员工，或约340名雇员，力图到2009年节省8000万美元。彭博提醒我们，到今年年底，在一项研究中报道，Cell Genesys在医学死亡后停止了一项研制前列腺癌的研究，这将会栽员230名，或约80%的员工。
The lucky ones find buyers among bigger drugmakers to keep research programs alive. That’s what happened to Genelabs Technologies, which develops of hepatitis C treatments and last month agreed to be bought by Glaxo for $57 million. Genelabs’ market value had plunged to $10 million and its stock had lost 82 percent of its value this year before the deal was announced, Bloomberg notes.
幸运的找到买主的较大制药企业还保持着研究项目。这是发生在Genelabs技术公司的事，它们开发丙型肝炎治疗，上个月同意5700万美元收购葛兰素史克。Genelabs的市场价值已下降到1000万美元，其股票已失去82%的价值，今年年前宣布交易。
“The sign over Wall Street for small biotechs is ‘closed for the season,’” Genelabs ceo Fred Driscoll tells Bloomberg.
“这标志着小型生物技术公司在华尔街是‘倒闭的季节’”，Genelabs首席执行官弗雷德德里斯科尔告诉彭博。
Other biotech that are unable or unwilling to find a partner will go into “hibernation, just doing enough to keep the technology alive and waiting for a better day,” Glen Giovannetti, who heads Ernst & Young’s Biotechnology Center, tells Bloomberg.
其他生物技术公司无法或不愿找到一个合作伙伴将进入“休眠状态，只要足以保持该技术存活，等待更好的一天，” 负责安永生物技术中心的Glen Giovannetti告诉彭博。
Investors will likely return to biotech once the economy stabilizes because the industry still promises attractive returns, according to Brent Milner, managing director of health care investing at Stanford Financial Group, an investment bank. “Stock-picking will come back in vogue and people will ask, ‘Where are the 30 percent growers?” Milner tells Bloomberg. “When that happens, everyone will again look to biotech because everyone loves a lottery ticket. I think there is a long-term silver lining.”
一旦经济稳定，投资者可能会返回生物技术领域，因为该行业仍然有吸引力的回报的承诺，根据斯坦福金融集团北海布伦特尔纳卫生保健投资，一家投次银行宣称。“选股会回来，人们会问‘30%的投资者在哪里？“米尔纳告诉彭博。“当发生这种情况，大家会再次期待生物技术，因为每个人都喜欢买彩票。我认为这是一个长期的一线希望。”