Derived from Strategic Transactions, Informa’s premium source for tracking life sciences deal activity, the Venture Funding Deals column provides a monthly review of emerging In Vitro Diagnostic, Medical Device, and Pharmaceutical companies that have received venture funding. This month’s column covers deals announced July through August 2015.

Dr Mark Carnegie-Brown

The news that a company is conducting a strategic review has grandiose implications of high-flying investment bankers, consultants and board members scouring the world and the management literature for examples of how successful companies have moved from strength to strength, and then how those lesions can be applied to the company in question.

The recent outpouring of soul searching, introspection and discussion prompted by the parting editorial from Greg Smith, a now ex-Goldman Sachs investment banker, has had little linkage to the biotechnology sector. [Smith proposed in his resignation letter that career progression at Goldman Sachs is now contingent not on making money for its investor clients but on making money for Goldman Sachs.]