Notes from BIO: The Times, They Are a Changin'

"We’ve become the last or second last round investors, where as we used to be shunned from the pre-IPO rounds. Eight, nine years ago we weren’t part of the party. We were kicked out whenever we wanted to play." --Howie Furst, Deerfield Partners

The panel on private biotech financing is standing room only (IVB is actually sitting on the floor). When Tengion CEO Steven Nichtberger just identified himself as CEO of a cash-flow negative private biotech company and asked the audience if there was any other employees of comapnies like that in the audience, a lot of hands went up.

That's a lot of people chasing a lot less money than there used to be.

image from flickr user flungabunga used under a creative commons license