BioPharma Dive January 18, 2022
Developing drugs is a capital-intensive activity, and never more so than when a biotech company wants to move from preclinical development to more expensive clinical trials. Early on, there are often angel investments and/or academic or government grants, but the most common source when moving into Phase I and II trials is fundraising rounds through syndicates of venture capital funds. It’s a lot to handle for biotech companies, which typically are small startups comprised of scientific founders and researchers.
One of the key intermediary steps is working with contract research organizations (CRO), which are involved in preclinical testing, assay development, animal testing, clinical trial design, drug manufacturing, data analysis and regulatory submissions. What is not as common, but is increasing,...