This is a fine performance for French “health tech”. While Aelis Farma, a Bordeaux company specializing in the development of treatments for cognitive disorders, is preparing to open the ball this week for biotech IPOs on the European market for 2022, the tricolor sector has drawn up, Tuesday 15 February, a very solid balance sheet for 2021.
Start-ups in the sector, which bring together biotechs, manufacturers of medical devices or even specialists in digital health and diagnostics, raised a record amount of 2.3 billion euros in 2021, i.e. 50% more than the previous year, according to the panorama published by the France Biotech association. “A milestone in the development of our ecosystem has certainly been reached during this year. It is up to us to anchor this momentum and demonstrate that France has a very strong card to play in health innovation.”rejoices Franck Mouthon, its president.
Among the emblematic fundraisers in 2021 are in particular that of the Ile-de-France DNA Script, which signed a funding round of 172 million euros, or Dental Monitoring (129 million euros) – the first times that start- up blue, white, red of the sector cross the threshold of 100 million euros on a fundraising -, but also of Mnemo Therapeutics (75 million euros), Treefrog Therapeutics (64 million euros) or even Tissium ( 50 million euros).
Gain in maturity
The sector, which has around 2,000 companies in France, achieves a still modest turnover (800 million euros in 2020), but the French nuggets of health are gaining in maturity. Drugs and treatments currently being tested by biotechs at advanced phase 2 or 3 clinical stages now represent 47% of the development programs registered within the sector. As for manufacturers of medical devices (implants, prostheses, scanners, etc.), the number of products marketed has risen by a quarter over one year.
Europe has generally benefited from renewed investor interest in healthcare innovations
This fine performance is not the prerogative of France alone. Europe has generally benefited from renewed investor interest in healthcare innovations. Of the 55 billion euros raised worldwide in 2021 by “health tech” companies, 17.5 billion concerned European companies. An amount that has more than quadrupled in five years. “We are seeing a real catch-up in the financing of European companies, with a few funding rounds of more than 200 million euros which are a little more like those that we can see in the United States”, notes Cédric Garcia, partner at EY. The latter underlines in particular the dynamism of European investment funds, like Jeito Capital, Sofinnova or Life Sciences Partners (LSP), whose financing capacities have been greatly expanded in recent months.
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