Investors avoiding Danish biotech market

Biotech companies complain of low stock revenue and little investor focus

Citing low stock revenue and little focus from analysts and investors, several listed biotech companies contend that Denmark is in danger of becoming a peripheral biotech market.

Over the last 18 months, no biotech companies have been listed in Denmark, compared to around 45 in the US.

Martin Bonde, the head of biotech advocate organisation Dansk Biotek, called the development worrying.

“It’s not easy to raise money in the US either, but clearly something needs to happen on the financing side of things if Denmark isn’t to become a peripheral arena within biotech,” Bonde told Børsen newspaper.

READ MORE: US Supreme Court rejects Novozymes appeal

Moving to the US
One of the issues with the Danish market is that Danes primarily tend to save via their homes and pensions, and the large Danish pension funds have poor experiences when investing in biotech firms.

“The Danish stock market is not big enough to support a spectrum of smaller, specialised investors,” Henrik Nøhr Poulsen, the investment head of the pension fund Industriens Pension, said.

“We have a few large institutional investors that invest broadly, but primarily in larger companies.”

One of the Danish biotech companies to successfully forgo the Danish market is Egalet, which left for the US in order to locate capital and a well-functioning market.

Just one year after being listed on the NASDAQ in New York, Egalet has increased its market value by over 50 percent to 1.5 billion kroner.

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