Biotech stocks pulled a surprise in the third quarter of 2007: they didn’t have a lackluster summer. The Burrill Biotech Select Index ended the third quarter up 9 percent, well ahead of the general markets as the Dow recorded just a 3.6 percent gain and the Nasdaq jumped 3.7 percent. But while public U.S. biotechnology companies performed well, their efforts to raise money grew a little tougher than it was during the first half of the year. In fact, the $2.6 billion raised was one of the smallest quarterly amounts since the first quarter of 2003. Offsetting the low financing total was a stellar $9 billion raised through partnering. This includes four blockbuster deals that biotechs inked with big pharmas. Each of these days carried the potential of being worth as much as $1 billion. These deals include Alnylam Pharmaceuticals' RNAi deal with Roche, Ariad Pharmaceuticals' TOR inhibitor deal with Merck, Targacept’s neuronal nicotinic receptor deal with GlaxoSmithKline and Icagen’s sodium ion channel deal with Pfizer.

- Peter Winter

A Mixed Bag: funding through the third quarter of 2007