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Biotechnology
生物科技
Fever rising
持續升溫
There are reasons to hope that the latest biotech boom will not be followed by another bust
我們有理由相信此次生物技術的繁榮不會伴隨一次衰退
AS INVESTORS and executives crammed into a New York ballroom for a conference held this week by the Biotechnology Industry Organisation, the mood was jittery.
本周，生物科技產業組織舉行了一場投資者大會，當業界投資人和高管魚貫進入舞廳充當的會場時，氣氛頗為緊張。
The previous week eight biotech firms had launched initial public offerings in America, together raising more than 500m.
就在上周，有八家生物技術公司在美國上市，募集的資金總和超過一億美元。
In a discussion panel on whether the industry's latest boom will last, a prominent investor, Oleg Nodelman, joked that he still had suitcases of cash for any firm that wanted it.
在一個關于此次生物科技產業的熱潮是否會延續的小組討論中，知名投資人奧列格?諾德曼開玩笑說：如果還有哪家公司需要資金，我這還有幾皮箱現鈔可以供應。
Biotechnology is the creation of drugs and other useful products by making use of nature's toolkit—that is, by adapting or exploiting processes found in living organisms.
生物技術是一種使用自然的工具箱，即通過來改造或利用生物體內的過程來創造藥物及其他有用產品的技術；
For example, Argos Therapeutics, one of the latest batch of firms to raise money, is working on ways to trigger patients' own immune systems to fight kidney cancer or HIV infection.
比如說，最近上市的眾多生物技術公司中的Argos Therapeutics，現在正在研究的通過激活患者自身的免疫系統來治療腎癌和艾滋病的療法。
The industry has undergone cycles of boom and bust since its inception in the 1970s, pioneered by firms such as Genentech.
由基因泰克等公司開創于上世紀70年代的生物技術產業自從其建立以來就不斷經歷繁榮與衰退的循環。
As the chart shows, last year more biotech firms joined American stock markets, raising more money, than at any time since the golden year of 2000.
如上圖所示，自2000年以來，去年是美國生物技術公司上市最多、募集資金總額最多的一年。在
In the past 12 months, even as the S&P 500 share index has risen by 20%, shares in biotech firms have surged by almost three times as much.
過去的12個月中，盡管標準普爾500股票指數已經上漲了20%，生物技術公司的股價飆升幅度還是有其三倍之多。
One of the main causes for the millennial boom was that investors, flush with money they had made from internet firms, became excited about the Human Genome Project.
千禧年生物技術股市繁榮的一個重要原因是，在互聯網行業賺得盆滿缽滿的投資者們對人類基因組計劃感到興奮不已。
They hoped that this massive, government-backed effort to lay out the entire genetic code of Homo sapiens would lead to a proliferation of profitable new treatments.
他們希望這項由政府支持的，旨在鋪陳出現代人類整個遺傳密碼的宏偉工程能夠催生出海量有利可圖的新療法。
Biotech's flowering is taking some time, however. Biology is complex.
但是，生物學是很復雜的，藥物搞不好不是毒性太大就是療效不佳。
Drugs have a habit of being too toxic or not working as well as they should.
生物技術的開花結果往往需要很長時間。
Indeed, creating new drugs through biotechnology is at the risky end of a business in which superhuman stamina and bottomless pockets are minimum requirements.
事實上，通過生物技術制造新藥物是風險最大的行業，超人的耐力和充裕的資金只是最低要求。
The Boston Consulting Group reckons that 90% of the money spent researching new treatments, conventional or biotech, goes on drugs that ultimately fail.
據波士頓咨詢公司估計，用于研制新藥的資金，有90%都打了水漂。把之前的試錯的損失算在內，
After spending as much as 2 billion, accounting for all the failures, a company just might have a medicine that works.
一個公司在花了20億美元后，則有可能獲得一種有效的藥物。
But then it must win the favour of the world's most stringent regulators, and convince governments, insurers and patients that the drug is worth paying for.
然后你還必須通過世界上最嚴格的監管程序，最后還要費盡心思向政府、保險公司和患者推銷你的藥物。
Overcome these obstacles, however, and the returns can be fabulous.
然而，在克服層層磨難后，得到的回報會高得難以置信。
Stelios Papadopolous, a veteran biotech investor, argues that much of the recent rise in share prices is due not to froth, but because the industry is beginning to deliver promising treatments.
以為生物科技界的資深投資人斯特里奧斯帕帕多普洛斯認為最近該行業股價的上升大多不是泡沫引起的，而是因為有一批有前途的新療法開始涌現。
In December America's Food and Drug Administration approved Sovaldi, a treatment for hepatitis C.
去年12月，美國食品和藥物管理局批準了治療丙型肝炎的藥物Sovaldi，
It could now earn revenues of more than 3 billion this year for its maker, Gilead, a biotech firm from California.
這項藥物今年可為其制造者，加里福利亞州的吉利德公司創造30億美元的營收。
Biogen Idec, a firm based in Massachusetts, is expected to earn more than 1 billion a year from Tecfidera, a pill for multiple sclerosis that the FDA approved last year. The firm's shares rose by almost 90% in 2013.
百健艾迪一家是總部位于馬薩諸塞州的制藥公司，有望憑借其去年通過FDA審查的治療多發性硬化癥的小藥丸每年盈利10億美元。
But the question is whether such triumphs are aberrations or hints of other victories yet to come.
去年，百健艾迪在的股價上漲了接近90%。但問題是，這些公司的成功究竟底是個例，還是生物技術領域整體繁榮的前兆。
There are several reasons to hope that even if the current share-price and IPO frenzy subsides, biotech firms will continue to prosper.
有幾點理由能讓我們認為即使現在生物技術行業的股價開始下降，IPO狂潮開始平息，生物技術公司依然會繼續勇往直前。
First, many smaller firms have become the research engines for bigger ones, explains Kevin Starr of Third Rock, a venture-capital firm.
首先，三石風險投資公司的凱文?斯塔爾解釋稱，如今很多小型公司已經變身為大公司的研發引擎。
For example Sanofi, a French pharmaceutical giant, now depends on Regeneron, an American biotech company, to help drive its growth.
比如說現在的法國制藥業巨頭賽諾菲，現在依靠美國的生物技術公司Regeneron來推動自身的發展。
This year alone, Sanofi will pump about 1 billion into Regeneron's research programme.
單單今年，賽諾菲就向Regeneron的研發計劃注入了10億美金。
The goal is not to Sanofise Regeneron or any other partner, says Christopher Viehbacher, Sanofi's chief executive.
我們的目的并不是將Regeneron或我們其他的合作伙伴賽諾菲化。
Rather, it is to combine Regeneron's capabilities in researching new treatments with Sanofi's skill in bringing them to market.
賽諾菲得的首席執行官解釋說，而是將Regeneron的研發能力和賽諾菲將信品導入市場的能力結合起來。
Celgene, one of America's larger biotech firms, has a similar distributed model of research. It helps finance the scientific work at smaller companies, then usually takes over a drug's development as it moves into clinical trials.
塞爾基因公司，美國的一家大型生物技術公司在研發環節同樣使用這種分包模式。
Besides being costly, these require expertise that younger, smaller firms often lack.
它先是資助小公司的研發工作，然后在藥物開發進入到臨床試驗階段是接手，因為此階段的開發不僅費用高，而且要求小公司缺乏的專門技能。
Second—and more important—firms are at last starting to reap the rewards of studying the human genome.
第二點，也是更重要的一點，生物技術公司終于開始在人類基因組的研究上有所斬獲。
As researchers illuminate the underlying genetic causes of a disease, they open up new routes to developing treatments.
一旦研究人員弄清導致一項疾病隱蔽的遺傳學原因，就同時為此疾病的治療提供了一種新途徑。
For example, Vertex has a drug to treat a subset of patients with cystic fibrosis, thanks to a better understanding of the faulty gene that causes it.
比如說福泰制藥公司有一種可以治療患有囊胞性纖維病的特定人群的藥物，就是得益于對導致這一疾病的缺陷基因更好的理解。
Bluebird bio, one of Celgene's small partner firms, which Third Rock also financed, is working on a treatment for sickle-cell disease that inserts into the patient's blood cells a properly functioning version of the faulty gene that causes the inherited ailment.
又比如塞爾基因的一個合作公司藍鳥生物，同樣也是三石風投投資的公司，現在正致力于一種治療鐮狀細胞病的療法：把造成此種遺傳疾病的缺陷基因的校正后再插入患者的干細胞內。
Advances in genomics are making clinical trials smaller and cheaper, since it is now easier to identify which patients have the specific genetic trait that a new drug is aimed at.
基因組學的發展史的臨床試驗的規模更小和成本更低，因為現在若要確甄別出具有試驗藥物針對的那種特定遺傳學特征的患者變得更加容易了。
This makes it more worthwhile to research diseases that are rare, and those that have so far proved intractable.
這樣就使得那些對經被罕見的和一直被認為難以治愈的疾病的研究變得更有價值了。
The FDA gives special consideration to drugs that treat such ailments, so companies can expect a speedier path to approval.
FDA對治療這類疾病的藥物會給予特殊的考慮，所以制藥公司會有望快速拿到批準。
Learning from mistakes
吸取經驗教訓
The venture capitalists who back biotech firms are trying to avoid the mistakes they made in the past.
投資生物技術的風投家們也正努力避免以前犯過的錯誤。
Index Ventures, based in Geneva, does not shower companies with cash to build lavish headquarters.
總部位于日內瓦的指數創投沒有揮金如土去蓋奢華的總部大樓，
Instead it assembles a tiny team of scientists and executives to oversee the research on a promising new line of treatment, outsourcing the bulk of the work to external contractors.
而是召集一個有科學家和高管組成的小組來監控有前景的新療法的研發，并把大部分的工作外包出去。
This makes the costs more predictable. It also makes it easier for Index to halt a project when it looks like failing.
這樣不僅使得成本更具可預見性，也能方便指數創投叫停可能失敗的項目。
Despite all these reasons for optimism, there is no guarantee that the current boom will last.
盡管有這么多令人樂觀的理由，我們不能肯定這次的繁榮會一直持續。
In these sunny times, it is tempting to forget the dark days that companies have endured.
快樂的日子總是會誘使人忘卻曾讓你備受煎熬的黑暗往事。
Twenty-five years later, quips Leonard Schleifer of Regeneron, I'm an overnight success.
我等了25年，Regenron的CEO萊納德?施萊弗爾自嘲道，我終于一夜暴富了。
It is also uncertain that insurers and governments will continue to pay biotech firms' high prices.
我們同樣不能確定保險公司和政府是否會繼續高價購買生物技術公司的產品。
Vertex's treatment for cystic fibrosis costs a staggering 294,000 for each course.
福泰制藥的治療囊胞性纖維癥的藥物療程的費用就高達駭人的294，000美金。
The most important question is whether research has indeed become more productive.
最重要的問題是，我們不知道生物科技領域的研究工作是否真的變得極富成效。
More than 80% of those recently polled by Mark Schoenebaum, an analyst at ISI Group, said yes.
國際戰略投資集團的分析師Mark Schoenebaum在調查了80%的生物科技公司后，得出的答案是肯定的。
Mr Schoenebaum himself, however, is unconvinced. I'm not arguing definitively that it hasn't happened, he muses, but I haven't been entirely persuaded.
但他本人卻對此結果存疑。我不是否認這一結果，Schoenebaum沉思道，我只是沒有被完全說服。
There are no data yet, he says, to draw firm conclusions. And for all the advances in genomics, and the increased sophistication of biotech firms and their investors, there is still a lot of luck involved in R&D.
盡管基因組學取得長足進步，生物技術公司與其投資者的經驗也在不斷增長，但醫藥研發極富不確定性的情況不會改變。
