To keep readers entertained during the Christmas season we’ve recapped our best-read stories of 2019.

The traditional 12 Days of Christmas covers things like partridges, golden rings, and milking maids.

Our stocking is better — full to the brim with battery metals, infant formula, expert stock picks, and resources ‘movers and shakers’.

And the final story to make it into Stockhead’s top 12 is….

There is no shortage of small cap health and biotech companies listed on the ASX — around 140 or so — but less than 25 are anywhere close to their ultimate dream of bringing a drug successfully to market.

Taking a drug or treatment from an idea to the lab, through animals, into patients and then onto the market is a notoriously difficult exercise.

The average length of time it takes for a drug to complete the journey from discovery to market is at least 10 years, with the average cost of that process $2.6 billion.

And these 22 biotechs are closer to the finish line than most.