Blog - New Street

Biotech IR Blog by Our CEO and Founder, Laurence Watts.

April 23, 2025

Should Every Public Biotech Have an ATM Facility, When Should One Be Put in Place, and Which Banks Are the Top ATM Managers?

Yes, every public biotech should have an ATM facility. Until they have a drug approved, biotechs are typically in a continuous cycle of fundraising as they progress their drug candidates further and further through development. Once a biotech is listed on the stock market, however, its financing options increase (relative to when they were private), […]

April 16, 2025

Reporting the Success of an Investor and Analyst Day to a Biotech’s Management and Board.

So, you just spent three months and maybe $100,000 organizing an Investor and Analyst Day for your biotech. The day itself went without a hitch, so that means it was a success, right? Well, best practice would be to consider some key metrics coming out of the event, present your findings to all of those […]

April 9, 2025

Best Practices for a Public Biotech’s Investor and Analyst Day

Investor and Analyst Days (sometimes called Investor Days, sometimes called Analyst Days, and not to be confused with the Analyst Day you have prior to your IPO while still privately-owned) are important tools to educate the market about a biotech’s performance, prospects, or perhaps the importance of an upcoming milestone. Used correctly they can alert […]

April 2, 2025

Why Do Public Biotechs Need Whistleblower Hotlines? (And What are Best Practices in Maintaining One?)

Third party-hosted whistleblower hotlines are now standard for newly public biotechs. Indeed, they are often included in the “subsidized IR infrastructure packages” that currently accompany listings on either NASDAQ or the NYSE. As such, it’s worth taking a moment to think about why they are commonplace, and what best practice is in setting up and […]

March 26, 2025

As a U.S. Biotech, What Proportion of My Time Should I Spend Marketing to Investors in Europe? (Or Asia?)

Every year around November (for reasons that will soon become apparent), I typically get asked by more than one client just how much time a U.S. biotech should spend marketing to European investors. The answer can vary, but the bottom line is that the average U.S. biotech is typically too small and too illiquid to […]

March 19, 2025

What Is a Greenshoe and How Does It Stabilize a Biotech’s IPO?

First time Biotech CFOs contemplating (or in the midst of) an IPO often ask me to explain what a greenshoe is and how it works. A “greenshoe” is a standard clause in an IPO underwriting agreement that allows the underwriters to sell more shares than originally contemplated as a way of stabilizing the company’s share […]

March 12, 2025

How Do Biotechs Choose Their Stock Exchange Tickers, Why Are Most Biotech Tickers Four Letters Long, and How Far Ahead of an IPO Should Tickers Be Reserved?

To make stock trading easier, every stock listed on an exchange is given a ticker (sometimes referred to as a ticker symbol or stock symbol). A ticker is a unique combination of (typically) letters that acts as shorthand to identify the underlying equity issuer. Edward Calahan is credited with inventing the ticker in 1867. Stocks […]

March 5, 2025

What’s the Difference Between a Sell-side Analyst, a Buy-side Analyst, and a Banking Analyst? (And What Are the Buy-side, Sell-side, and Chinese Walls)?

I’m pretty sure there’s a joke here. Let’s try it. A sell-side analyst, a buy-side analyst, and a banking analyst walk into a bar. The sell-side analyst recommends his favorite cocktail to the other two but orders water, because he’s not allowed to have one himself. The buy-side analyst listens to the sell-side analyst’s recommendation […]

February 26, 2025

How Do You Build a Biotech’s Equity Research Coverage? (And Is There Such a Thing as Too Much Coverage?)

Having an equity analyst take up coverage of your biotech (including their rationale, a recommendation and price target) costs money – either directly or indirectly. This is because equity analysts can be paid $1+ million a year, including bonus, depending on their prestige and the bank they work for (an analyst friend of mine gave […]

February 19, 2025

How Do Public Biotechs Know Who Owns Them? (And What Are 13F, 13D and 13G Reports, and Transfer Agents/Registrars?)

It may sound odd, but the last time a biotech knows exactly who owns them is in the brief seconds before their first trade as a public company. At that moment – were they not quivering with anticipation at imminently going public – a CEO or CFO could look at the cap table they (or […]

February 12, 2025

Should Biotechs Hire an (Internal) Investor Relations Officer or an (External) Investor Relations Agency?

As the Founder of an investor relations agency, you would be right in assuming that I have strong (and potentially biased) views to the question posed. Nevertheless, let’s talk seriously about the options available to biotechs and the choices they make. When a biotech is private, the CEO and CFO (if there is one) typically […]

February 5, 2025

Should Biotechs Hold Quarterly Earnings Calls (and What Happens if You “Set Precedent”)?

Cutting to the chase, the answer to the question posed is generally, “no,” but there are exceptions. So, let me spend the rest of this essay explaining why quarterly earnings calls are generally a bad idea for biotechs, and when those exceptions might occur. The key word and clue is embedded within the question: earnings. […]

January 29, 2025

How Many Healthcare Investor Conferences Should a Biotech Attend Each Year?

Going to healthcare conferences takes a lot of time and money. Typically, both a biotech’s CEO and CFO are in attendance for one or more days. Then there’s the amount of downtime associated with traveling to and from each conference (which is more for West Coast biotechs, given most healthcare investor conferences are on the […]

December 30, 2024

What Did U.S. Biotechs Learn from Silicon Valley Bank’s Collapse in 2023?

On Friday, March 10, 2023 – less than two years ago at the time of writing – Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) failed after a run on its deposit base. At the time it was the second largest bank failure in U.S history with approximately $209 billion of assets when it went under. It would become […]

December 23, 2024

What’s The Difference Between Investor Relations and Public Relations for Biotechs?

A lot of first-time biotech CEOs and CFOs confuse and conflate investor relations with public relations. So, I thought it would be good to address the issue, and then talk a little about why such confusion exists. Put simply, the difference between investor relations and public relations is their target audience and the relationships their […]

December 16, 2024

Should I Bother Going to The J.P. Morgan Healthcare Investor Conference if I’m a Small/Medium Sized Biotech?

First of all, let’s be honest: you want me to say “No”, right? The J.P. Morgan Healthcare Investor Conference is the week most people love to hate. Not only is it a super-spreader event for COVID, HMPV, RSV, flu and goodness knows what else, it’s usually marred by cold and rainy weather, with more than […]

December 9, 2024

Avoid Kitchen Sink Investor Announcements

I can count more times than I care to mention the number of times I have had to caution a management team not to “put it all in one release.” In fact, a long time ago I had a client whose CEO was convinced that the more news that was packed into a single press […]

December 2, 2024

Dates to Avoid When Making Important Investor Announcements

Recently, I was editing a clinical data release for a client of mine. The data looked great. It was a very positive release. But my stomach sank when I realized the date the prospective announcement was scheduled to go out: September 11. Now, the timing of the release clearly had no bearing on how awesome […]