Investments in biotech: there is a desire, but there is no opportunity
Money is burning
Sergey Kashin, The Secret of the Firm magazine No. 1-2 / 2011
(the article is published on the Rusnano website)
The Russian venture environment is the opposite of the Western one: there is a lot of government and money, few private investors and projects. The industry is entering the era of the "anti–nineties": scientists who left the country return with innovative ideas.
Last year, Russian innovative startups felt at ease. While Western European and American investors were counting every penny, companies such as Rusnano and the Russian Venture Capital Company (RVC) finally broke out in Russia. The money that the state pours into innovative companies through them (plus the Bortnik Fund) is quite comparable to the amount of funds available, for example, to the European venture industry – 100 billion rubles against 2 billion euros. The comparison is, of course, a little strained: in Europe – private funds, in Russia – public. The lion's share of them (see the charts on the cover) is occupied by Rusnano investments – of course, all innovative, but not all venture.
Russian investors are faced with a disaster that Western investors never dreamed of: there are not enough projects. "Now in Russia there are good conditions for receiving investments in the field of biotech: there is a lot of money, but there are few worthwhile projects," says Andrey Leonov, CEO of Inkuron. Pharmstandard, for example, has not found a better use for free funds, except to buy 5% of its own shares out of free circulation. Scientists who left Russia after perestroika, such as Inkuron and Nanooptic Devices, are returning to their homeland with innovative projects. The "returnee" projects are not losers. It's just that the conditions that innovators can get from Western investment funds have sharply tightened. The reverse influx of "brains" can also change the structure of investments: as our analysis shows, it is seriously different from the international one. More than 50% of venture investments in Russia account for IT projects – the West did this in the 1990s.
But now IT is there fighting for the first place with life science projects. Another turbulent direction, poorly represented in Russia, is alternative energy. Although Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is sure that the only alternative to oil and gas is firewood, nevertheless, a technological lag of a dozen years in this clearing is dangerous for the future of Russia. Western practice shows that the active development of Klintech is inspired by the state – not by financial injections, but by tax benefits. Russia is unlikely to be an exception here.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru
01.02.2011