Yeah, wake me up with bioinformaticians (computer programming + biology + statistics) make more than computer programmers.
It's an incredibly interesting field, but over-hyped, extremely hard and not particularly profitable.
It's an incredibly interesting field, but over-hyped, extremely hard and not particularly profitable.
Consider that orphan diseases are often not worked on due to either 1) not enough rich people have the disease or 2) only poor people have the disease so it's not worth it.
People in developing countries have serious diseases, but there's no money in it so no one is working on it (minus some efforts from people like Bill Gates).
Worst form of social darwinism EVER.
However, for those people that have or are going to get lung cancer or diabetes or other generally ( not always ) 'self-inflicted' diseases - should we just say - sorry - no treatment - it's you're own silly fault?
For heart disease - actually the best treatments are effectively preventative already - in cancer HPV vaccine is aimed at reducing cervical cancer - I've worked with the inventors of that.
In terms of 'whataboutery' of should you be spending money on rich peoples diseases ( whether self inflicted or not ), when you could save more lives in other countries with basic sanitation.
Well that's a whole different question - a question for collective action through governments or charity - not a question for commercial companies. Commercial companies have to find people able to pay for what they do ( which could be governments or charities ).
Personally I don't see why it needs to be either/or - ie why we can't we work on both cure's for cancer and provide clean water?
Returns to venture investments in biotech have outperformed tech in recent years, some new drugs are generating $5-10B within a few years of launch, and biopharma is the second biggest subsector of VC after software
Most people haven't heard of the top biotech VCs and companies because they don't blog or do podcasts but they are very good at what they do
And as another commenter said, some of these companies develop drugs that give people with cancer or infants with life threatening genetic disease many more years of healthy life and turn these conditions from death sentences to manageable chronic diseases
Nasdaq biotech 3y: +20%
Nasdaq tech 3y: +75%
Are you referring to Nasdaq as a whole when you say Nasdaq tech? The Nasdaq components aren't really representative of tech startups: https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/quotes/Nasdaq-100-Ind...
Biotech startups IPO at a much higher rate than tech startups and IPO on average 3 years after series a: https://www.baybridgebio.com/blog/ipo_2018_q12019.html
These IPOs give IRRs of 60% on average to series a investors: https://www.baybridgebio.com/blog/venture_returns_ipo.html
Biotech VC portfolios have low loss rates and greater portfolio concentration than tech VCs
There have been 10-15 new biotech unicorns a year since 2013 or so, on annual VC funding of $5-15B
There are plenty of other sources but i don't have access to them atm