New York (HedgeCo.Net) – Clarus Ventures closed the door on capital raising for its new biotech fund, but not before raising the targeted $500 million. This new fund from Clarus comes on the heels of other funding raises within the biotech sector from Flagship Ventures ($537 million), MPM Capital ($400 million) and Atlas Venture ($280 million). All of these funds were opened this year.

According to a recent Bloomberg article, the record for venture fund investing in the biotech sector came last year with $6.08 billion. With the new funds mentioned above, the industry is on pace to invest $7 billion into the sector over the course of 2015.

The healthcare sector has been the top performing sector over the course of the last year and the last five years as well. The momentum is helping companies within the sector raise capital from investors and the industry seems to be getting an assist from the FDA. The FDA has been cooperating with faster decisions on approvals and with a greater number of approvals. There were 41 new drugs approved in 2014 and that was the highest total in 18 years.

Rick Pendergraft
Research Analyst
HedgeCoVest