In lieu of a rapid IPO bounce back, life sciences lawyers anticipate alternative financings and combinations to pick up in 2023, along with continued momentum for regulatory expertise. In particular, the outlook for biotech IPOs showed no signs of a rapid rebound. Sam Zucker, a Silicon Valley Life Sciences partner, said the pace of dealmaking has slowed and the mix of corporate work has shifted toward down-round financings and mergers. However, he said that Goodwin has a “strong pipeline” of biotech companies that have confidentially filed for an IPO, cleared comments and are ready for the market rebound. As for a rebound, Zucker described 2023 as a “bellwether” year. “If we see good data from important companies, that’ll play a large role in determining if the IPO market opens in Q3,” he said to Law.com. “IPOs that do well will encourage bankers and issuers to move forward. But IPOs that perform poorly could have a deterrent effect on the whole [biotech] subsector.”