The Biotech Investor: How to Profit from the Coming Boom in Biotechnology

by Tom Abate

Overview

A sophisticated investor's practical tool kit for
analyzing the science, business, opportunities, and risks in the century's most promising industry
The world is entering a biotechnology boom-but only informed investors will prosper in the incredibly complex biotech business. Separating the bioengineered wheat from the chaff, San Francisco Chronicle science and technology columnist Tom Abate, one of the top objective authorities on biotech, gives investors the analytical foundation to understand the science, finances, time horizon, and technological and commercial potential of this burgeoning industry.
In The Biotech Investor, Abate provides sophisticated business analysis, guidelines for assessing company leadership, easy-to-digest reports from the labs, and indispensable investor tools and metrics. He explains how breaking news, medical conferences, U.S. Food and Drug Administration approvals, and the patent process affect investing strategies. Finally, he looks beyond medicine to review the financial opportunities presented by biotechnology advances in everything from agriculture to jean manufacturing, and shows investors how to identify "coattail" industries such as instrumentation and software development that will benefit from biotech successes.
The Biotech Investor is the comprehensive, expert source for successful and intelligent investing in one of the twenty-first century's most promising industries.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781466851214
Publisher:	Holt, Henry & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	08/13/2013
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Award-winning biotechnology, technology, and health care reporter Tom Abate writes the weekly BioScope column for the San Francisco Chronicle. He lives in San Leandro, California.

One of the nation’s most influential observers of the biotechnology industry, award-winning technology and health-care reporter Tom Abate writes the weekly “BioScope” column for the San Francisco Chronicle. He lives in San Leandro, California.

Table of Contents

	Preface: The Biotech Wave	ix
1	The Foundations of Biotech Investing	1
2	The Age Wave and the Market for New Medicines	23
3	The Genomics Wave: The Drug Discovery Marathon	47
4	The Proteomics Wave: Proteins and the Next Medicines	73
5	Picks and Shovels: The Biotech Toolmakers	97
6	Green Genes: Agricultural Biotechnology	121
7	The New Factories: Industrial Biotechnology	147
8	Brave New Worlds: Stem Cells, Clones, and Other Frontiers	169
9	The Biotech Clusters: Follow the Leaders	197
10	The Investment Frontier	219
Appendix I	Public Biotechnology Firms	243
Appendix II	Biotechnology Firms by Niche	261
Appendix III	Research Resources	271
	Acknowledgments	275
	Index	279

Editorial Reviews

With the population aging and eager for medical innovations, the market for biotechnology is vast. But for investors looking at biotech firms, it can be a minefield: before a company's brilliant ideas pan out as profitable products, they must go through years of costly research and development, clear government regulatory hurdles and sometimes, as with genetically modified foods, weather political controversy. This informative and well-written primer will help individual investors navigate the treacherous terrain of biotech stocks. Abate, a biotechnology and health care reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, provides an overview of each sector of the biotechnology industry and the leading companies in it, tells where to find up-to-date information on the scientific and medical developments that drive the market, and explains how to evaluate the financial prospects of the often shaky start-ups that crowd the field. His advice is appropriately cautious; he suggests putting no more than 20% of a portfolio in biotechnology, and waiting until a company is in hailing distance of profitability before investing. While the book is pitched at the non-professional, Abate makes it clear that these speculative, volatile and often over-sold stocks demand more effort-he recommends reading scientific journals, attending conferences and perusing the patent literature -than a complacent mutual-fund investor is used to. But for those willing to brave the new world of biotechnology, this is a good place to start. 20 charts and graphs. (Feb.) Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Most investors are advised to buy and hold, but investing in biotechnology stock requires a different strategy. Because biotech medicines are experimental in nature and require strict regulatory review from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, such investments usually are high risk, so why would anyone want to buy stocks in this sector? Abate, a biotechnology, technology, and healthcare reporter who writes a weekly "BioScope" column for the San Francisco Chronicle, here argues that the biotechnology sector has become especially interesting to investors owing to the maturation of biotech science and the aging of the population: "Companies in this industry are attacking the root causes of cancer, heart attack, Parkinson's disease and other modern scourges." Abate is forthright when discussing risk in this field and gives the reader the information needed to identify, evaluate, and invest in biotech companies. He discusses how to track stocks using the two biotech indexes on the stock exchange and indicates specific ways to search the Internet when investigating the biotechnology field. Like Jim McCamant's Biotech Investing: Every Investor's Guide, this book argues that now is the time to invest in biotech companies, but readers should remember that this is advisable only for high-risk investors. Such investors will find this book clear and understandable. Recommended for public libraries.-Bellinda Wise, Nassau Community Coll. Lib., Garden City, NY Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

An incredibly well-researched guide . . . Tom Abate is a smart independent observer, and his book will serve investors for many years to come.” —Brook H. Byers, partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

From the Publisher