Merrion Capital is highlighting the European biotechnology sector as a good bet for investors. It is becoming increasingly important for new pharmaceutical product development, and investing in this sector is not necessarily as risky as you might think, according to the brokers. While the European biotech industry is smaller and less developed than in the US, it still provides exciting opportunities, such as MorphoSys, GPC Biotech and Lion Bioscience.

The prospect of consolidation in the next two years increases the opportunity for strategic investment, according to Merrion.

In the Republic, the biotech sector has been the poor relation of information technology.

Government backing is now improving, with €117 million (£92 million) available over the next five years to develop a research and development infrastructure in both biotechnology and information and communication technology. The key Irish biotech companies are Elan, Trinity Biotech and Biotrin.