BIO Celebrates Five Years of the JOBS Act

Law has supported 212 biotech IPOs

Washington, D.C. (April 5, 2017) – Today the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) celebrates the fifth anniversary of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act, which was signed into law on April 5, 2012.  The JOBS Act was designed to enhance capital formation for emerging companies, a vital imperative for growing biotechnology companies seeking to fund the substantial expenses of discovering and developing innovative new medicines.

“The extraordinary impact of the JOBS Act shows the dramatic effect that smart policymaking can have on the search for groundbreaking cures and treatments,” said BIO President and CEO Jim Greenwood. “BIO is proud to have supported this game-changing law, and we look forward to working with Congress to build on its success.

“Pre-revenue innovators undertaking the decades-long development process intrinsic to scientific advancement must raise vast sums of money to fund their research. The JOBS Act has increased the flow of capital to innovative small businesses while also decreasing capital diversions from the lab to unnecessary compliance burdens. BIO is excited to support legislative efforts like the Fostering Innovation Act and the Corporate Governance Reform and Transparency Act that would further enhance public capital formation for emerging biotechnology innovators.”

BIO has conducted a five-year review of the JOBS Act’s influence on biotech capital formation, revealing the breadth and depth of the law’s impact:

• In the five years since the JOBS Act became law, there have been 212 biotech IPOs. The prior five years saw only 55 biotechnology companies going public.
• The next generation of medical advances is being funded by capital raised through JOBS Act IPOs. Biotechnology companies using provisions of the JOBS Act to go public currently have 696 therapies currently in development, and the FDA has approved 18 new treatments from JOBS Act companies.
• Emerging biotech companies raised $17 billion through JOBS Act IPOs – an average of $80 million per offering. These newly public innovators subsequently raised an additional $16 billion through follow-on offerings. 
• The success of the JOBS Act has supported a surge of financing for early-stage research. In the last five years, there have been 48 IPOs by biotechs in the earliest stages of research (pre-clinical R&D and Phase I clinical trials), compared to just 3 preclinical and Phase I IPOs in the five years before the JOBS Act.
• The JOBS Act has supported IPOs from companies across a wide range of therapeutic areas. Oncology companies make up the largest share of JOBS Act IPOs (25%). The law also has led to increased funding for disease areas that have historically been difficult to finance, including diabetes and Alzheimer’s.
• JOBS Act biotech companies currently employ over 27,000 people and have a market value of more than $111 billion.

BIO supports capital markets reforms that will build on the success of the JOBS Act and foster the continued growth of emerging public biotechnology companies, including:

• The Fostering Innovation Act (H.R. 1645, sponsored by Reps. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) and Trey Hollingsworth (R-IN)), which would extend the JOBS Act’s Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Section 404(b) exemption for an additional five years for certain pre-revenue companies;
• The Corporate Governance Reform and Transparency Act (sponsored by Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI) in the 114^th Congress), which would provide for SEC oversight of proxy advisory firms and foster accountability, transparency, responsiveness, and competition in the proxy advisory firm industry;
• Enhanced short selling transparency in order to shine a light on manipulative trading behaviors that disincentivize long-term investment in innovation, and;
• Targeted capital formation provisions in the Financial CHOICE Act (sponsored by Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) in the 114^th Congress), including the Fostering Innovation Act, the Corporate Governance Reform and Transparency Act, the Small Company Disclosure Simplification Act, the Small Business Capital Formation Enhancement Act, and the proposed Small Issuer Exemption from Internal Control Evaluation.

An infographic summarizing the impact of the JOBS Act on the biotech industry may be found at https://www.bio.org/sites/default/files/JOB-Act-at-5-FINAL.pdf

About BIO
BIO is the world's largest trade association representing biotechnology companies, academic institutions, state biotechnology centers and related organizations across the United States and in more than 30 other nations. BIO members are involved in the research and development of innovative healthcare, agricultural, industrial and environmental biotechnology products. BIO also produces the BIO International Convention, the world’s largest gathering of the biotechnology industry, along with industry-leading investor and partnering meetings held around the world. BIOtechNOW is BIO's blog chronicling “innovations transforming our world” and the BIO Newsletter is the organization’s bi-weekly email newsletter. Subscribe to the BIO Newsletter.

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