The inherent risks associated with newly traded biopharmaceutical firms

•Biopharmaceutical firms that have recently gone public lose billions of dollars, with a minority of firms surviving.•Of the biopharmaceutical firms going public after 2012, only 43% continued to file an annual report in 2015, with 84% of these operating at a net loss in 2015.•Of the IPOs with collaborators, the mean was 2.7 collaborators per IPO.