HPE Miami 2023 | Tailwinds Impacting the Surge in Pharma Services Investing

Key takeaways included:

1. The current state of the market is characterized by market volatility and a lack of access to liquidity, which has put pressure on client bases and (derivatively) on portfolio companies.
2. The focus for investment in 2023 will likely fall toward innovation. In the commercialization space, we are seeing a shift toward digital. Buyers are more sophisticated when it comes to commercialization and will look to more cutting-edge tech while being more discerning in the investments they make.
3. With a tough credit market and high bid asks from founders, parties will need to find creative ways to bridge the valuation gap between buyers and sellers.
4. With a macro uncertainty around pharma, the market would expect multiples to decrease, although we are not seeing this at a large scale yet.
5. COVID-19 provoked lasting changes in the pharma services space, including a broadened interest from an investment perspective, new investors (both strategic and financial) with fresh views and subsector dependence with niche markets overperforming. Nevertheless, there remains uncertainty as to the lasting effect of these changes and whether all of these new players will stay (and continue to find success) in the space long term.