The recent acquisition of Forest Laboratories Inc. by Actavis for 25 billion USD shows the trend of generic producers moving into the innovative drug space; with fewer blockbusters on the market, companies focused on generics will need to move into innovative therapeutics.

The acquisition of Forest Laboratories Inc. by Actavis is indicative of where we may see much future growth of generic companies - namely, patented innovation. Such projects can either be generated in-house or through licensing / M&A of innovative emerging biotech companies. Through the extension of the business model of generic companies, they will be able to control the whole life cycle of drugs from the patent protection into the generic phase...

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By Michael Quigley, Research Manager, LSN

Big data has not gone unnoticed among early stage life science investors. The intersection of software and biology is one that the LSN research team has noticed to be an area of increased investor focus in recent months. The technologies in this space include devices or tools that are able to record and/or transmit biological data as well as software systems that are able to analyze sets of biological data for further use. Basically, this is the convergence of mobile technology, cloud data infrastructure, and next generation medical devices.  

LSN tracks 244 investors active this space, and has secured over 100 mandates to invest in this sector over the last 10 months. Examples of technologies in this space include implantable or wearable devices that are able to generate and wirelessly transmit live information on the patient, or genomics platforms that are able to diagnose disease long before any symptoms are shown...  

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