Biotech Investments: Diversify with Medical Innovations (2024)

FAQs

What biotech did Warren Buffett invest in? ›

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway has bought 648,447 shares of Biogen at a combined worth of $192.4 million ahead of the FDA filing of a controversial Alzheimer's drug.

Financial Resources

Finally, it's important to know whether the company is well-financed. After all, funding is the fuel of the biotech industry. Without funding, a biotech company will be forced to cut back on R&D, and clinical and commercial activities, thus reducing its chances of maximizing return on investment.

In 2021, Bezos reportedly invested in the California-based aging research biotech startup Altos Labs. This biotech company focuses on cellular rejuvenation with the activation of four genes called Yamanaka factors that have been found to revert aged cells to a more youthful state.

Vir Biotechnology (VIR)

The Gates Foundation, though, committed $10 million to support Vir in developing a prophylactic HIV vaccine using Vir's human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) vector platform. VIR-1388 is an investigational novel T cell vaccine.

Cash Declines in a Challenging Financial Environment

Biotech companies saw a significant decline in company cash and marketable securities in 2023. Companies have spent their cash reserves over the past year to fund research and development and drive value but have struggled to raise funds to refill their coffers.

Biotech financing rounds are fewer, but larger: the average private financing round so far in 2024 (excluding seed rounds) is almost $90 million (Fig. 3a), and at least 50 companies have raised rounds worth $100 million so far this year, according to Endpoints.

McKinsey's Biotech Innovation Index assesses innovation and funding in terms of four indicators: discovery (measured in numbers of patents and publications); translation (measured in numbers of new biotech companies and average amounts raised in early-stage financing); growth capital (measured in average amounts raised ...

Why Insilico Medicine, ElevateBio, Inato, and Exscientia are among Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies in biotech in 2024. In 2023, it was hard to escape the hype around AI, regardless of the industry.

Medical biotechnology uses living cells and cell materials to produce pharmaceutical and diagnostic products that help treat and prevent human diseases.

What is dark biotechnology? ›

Dark biotechnology is the color associated with bioterrorism or biological weapons and biowarfare which uses microorganisms, and toxins to cause diseases and death in humans, livestock and crops.

Back then, Berkshire bought 648,447 shares of Biogen that were worth about $192.4 million by year-end 2019, or about $280 a piece. As of the end of the first quarter this year, the holding firm reported a 643,022-share stake in Biogen at a value of $179.9 million.

The holding company sold off its remaining 3 million shares in ABBV in Q1. Buffett first bought AbbVie during the third quarter of 2020 as part of a wider bet on the pharmaceutical industry. But Berkshire has all but given up on the position, gutting it over the past four consecutive quarters.

Bought: Chubb Ltd.

Chubb is the world's largest publicly traded property and casualty insurance company. Buffett took a massive new stake in Chubb in the first quarter of 2024, adding to his sizable exposure to the insurance industry.

Top Warren Buffett Stocks By Size

Apple (AAPL), 400 million. Coca-Cola (KO), 400 million. Kraft Heinz (KHC), 325.6 million. Occidental Petroleum (OXY), 255.3 million.