Bills To Help Early-Stage Innovators Access Working Capital

The House Financial Services Committee, in a marathon session late April, considered a package of 15 bills designed to relieve regulatory burdens and facilitate access to needed capital for biotech startups. Among them were the following:

• The Equal Opportunity for All Investors Act,which would create a certification exam to qualify as an accredited investor so more qualified investors can participate at these critical early stages.
• The Small Entity Update Act, which ensure regulators appropriately classify small entities so they can receive JOBS Act support.
• The Expanding Access to Capital Act, which would extend the emerging growth company exemption period of the JOBS Act by another five years.

Taken together, these pieces of legislation, which were approved by the Financial Services Committee, will save small biotechs millions of dollars a year that could be best used to advance research instead of filing paperwork.