Financial risk of the biotech industry versus the pharmaceutical industry.

The biotech industry now accounts for a substantial and growing proportion of total R&D spending on new medicines. However, compared with the pharmaceutical industry, the biotech industry is financially fragile. This article illustrates the financial fragility of the biotech and pharmaceutical industries in the US and the implications of this fragility for the effects that government regulation could have on biotech firms. Graphical analysis and statistical tests were used to show how the biotech industry differs from the pharmaceutical industry. The two industries' characteristics were measured and compared, along with various measures of firms' financial risk and sensitivity to government regulation. Data from firms' financial statements provided accounting-based measures and firms' stock returns applied to a multifactor asset pricing model provided financial market measures. The biotech industry was by far the most research-intensive industry in the US, averaging 38% R&D intensity (ratio of R&D spending to total firm assets) over the past 25 years, compared with an average of 25% for the pharmaceutical industry and 3% for all other industries. Biotech firms exhibited lower and more volatile profits and higher market-related and size-related risk, and they suffered more negative stock returns in response to threatened government price regulation. Biotech firms' financial risks increase their costs of capital and make them more sensitive to government regulations that affect their financial prospects. As biotech products grow to represent a larger share of new medicines, general stock market conditions and government regulations could have a greater impact on the level of innovation of new medicines.