Connecticut Trailing In Biotech Funding
Venture capital funding for New England's life sciences and health care industries jumped 44 percent last year, driven by a boom in private funding for the region's biotechnology startup companies, according to a report released Thursday.
Massachusetts remained by far the region's biggest magnet of health-related VC funds last year, capturing $1.14 billion of the region's total of $1.26 billion, and 108 of the region's 119 total VC deals.
Rhode Island received $103.5 million in five deals, followed by Maine's $7.1 million for three deals; New Hampshire's $6.2 million for two deals; and $3 million and one deal for Connecticut companies outside the New York metropolitan area. No Vermont health companies received VC funding last year.
Two-thirds of all venture capital investments in 2006 in health care-related fields went to New England's developers of biotechnology drugs -- medications produced from living organisms that are generally more complex to make than traditional medicines.
Biotech firms received $831 million in 68 venture capital deals last year, according to the annual survey by the PricewaterhouseCoopers accounting firm and the National Venture Capital Association.
The $1.26 billion in total health-related venture capital funding last year was up from $880 million in 2005, when funding declined 20 percent from the previous year.
Last year's 44 percent growth rate exceeded 2006's 11 percent gain in venture capital funding for all industries in New England, which totaled just over $3 billion, according to data from a separate survey released in January.
New England's medical research centers, hospitals and drug and medical device makers "helped fill the gap caused by funding declines in other industries," said Gerry McDougall, leader of PricewaterhouseCoopers' health sciences practice.
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