The Pharmagellan Guide to Biotech Forecasting and Valuation

Finally. A practical guide to valuation in biotech. If you're looking to figure out whether you should use IRR or NPV or how to build that NPV spreadsheet, this is not the book for you. You don't have to be an expert number cruncher but the book assumes a basic financial knowledge and understanding of general valuation concepts. This is why the book is so useful. Models are only as good as what goes into them. David, who clearly has deep industry experience, does a fantastic job of framing a process for thinking through key assumptions including revenue size and growth and development and commercialization costs. Equally useful are commonly used benchmarks for these assumptions (of course only to be used in absence of any other knowledge). The book is to be used "just in time" and doesn't require you read it beginning to end.

The book might seem shorter than expected for the steep price. However, this is because all the fluff is culled away. Each section is direct and useful as a reference. This guide contained many facts and figures useful for valuation and modelling which should create value for readers.

Sure, it's not cheap for a book of only 100 pages. But the information contained in the Pharmagellan Guide is straight to-the-point. There isn't any fluff (I can't say the same for some 1,000+ page textbooks). I strongly recommend this book to anyone involved in biotech or pharma valuation.One particularly useful component: the citations and Pharmagellan's analyses. For example, Pharmagellan did a study of clinical trial success times, which you can incorporate into your valuation models.

Book is ~100 pages with some chapter being literally 2 pages long. Essentially the book provides a quick guide to forecasting and provides references on what numbers make good assumptions for these models. I would say the book should be valued between $30-50

As a 26yr-old beginner in this journey, I couldn't be any happier about this book. For those of us who come from the finance sector but still love & plan to work in Biotech, it's impossible not to find it hard to make an accurate analysis of so many pre-commercial biotech COs.Frank's book is THE guide you will need from now on to make either a comprehensive analysis or an investment decision. Its insightful, its very well-written and it gives you all the tools you'll use

A must-read for anyone involved in biotech. As an investor, I found myself updating my financial models after every chapter of the book. The author takes a data-driven approach to answering difficult-to-answer questions in biotech forecasting. The book helped me see value in companies where I didn’t think it existed before and vice versa.

Read book cover to cover the day I received it. The book is organized very well and provides an excellent structure and guide for those new to the field as well as interesting benchmarks and data for the more experienced and seasoned.I highly recommend for buy and sell-side analysts seeking to refine their own valuations or understand others, consultants who conduct pipeline commercial assessments or conduct diligence/ support licensing & partnerships, and those in in-line business/corporate development and their internal customers in senior management and on the Board.I am impressed by how the authors managed to concisely review materials in a way that is useful to the aforementioned varied stakeholders and experience sets. I plan to keep it nearby as relevant issues surface and to purchase for others to help ensure a structured approach built on the valuation principles and data outlined.

Short, concise, and rich in relevant information

This book is a very short expenses and forecast summary of a much more complete book, which curiously despite being much longer and well researched, is cheaper than this book. The book that Pharmaagellan summarizes is the 2nd edition of "Forecasting for the Pharmaceutical Industry" by Cook, 2nd edition, 2015. If you are in a hurry to do a quick prediction of expenses and revenues for a new medicine coming into the market and you dont have time to read Cook's then this book is enough albeit very simple, has all the main bullet points of what you need to do and conditions for that. Besides the forecasting brevity which is not necessarily negative when you are in a hurry and with it only the book would be 4 stars, what makes it just 3 stars is that the "valuation" piece is not even a summary or useful at all. It is only 8 pages and no valuation at all other than 1.5 pages of generalities about discount rate in Pharma. The other 6.5 pages are about regulatory and rates of success in phases without explaining how to factor that in in a simple risk adjusted net present value/discounted cash flow valuation. Thus, for valuation is a useless book and it should have the words "& valuation" removed from its cover and title.

This book is a very basic valuation book for beginners. I can give them the credit of being well structure, easy to read but it goes to show no valuation at the end. For a valuation book, on can be pending for some more NPV or discount rates assumptions. It is more likely not the best book for life sciences valuation besides for that price it bear no resemblance to other books out there.

Not worth the price.