For three decades, Megan Baldwin dedicated her life to taking her PhD idea – a way to treat vision-impairment – to the world. By the start of the year, that idea had morphed into a biotech hopeful known as Opthea with a market value of almost $1 billion. This week, her worst nightmare came true. A late-stage trial showed the treatment did not work.

Had it worked, as the Melbourne scientist and her line-up of heavyweight investors had hoped, Opthea could have been generating almost $5 billion in annual revenues, according to the most bullish broker estimates. Instead, the company is on the verge of collapse. Shareholders have lost millions.