[Last updated, July 13, 2024] The biotech industry is witnessing a stark paradox in 2024. On one hand, there’s a group of biotech startups that are thriving, attracting nearly $3 billion in funding in Q1 2024 alone. Job openings in the sector are also considerable in several parts of the U.S., especially in the Greater…
Best-selling pharmaceuticals of 2023 reveal a shift in pharma landscape
[Updated May 21, 2024.] 2023 may not go down as the brightest year for the pharma sector, but the entry of Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic (semaglutide) into the ranks of top-selling drugs like Keytruda, Dupixent, and Eliquis signals a new era in the treatment of metabolic disease. Novo Nordisk’s sales jumped by more than one-third in…
Biotech bounces back at JPM 2024 on optimism, breakthroughs and calculated bets, but uncertainties persist
At the dawn of 2024, there’s a sense of renewed optimism in the biotech sector despite recent sector-specific challenges. This week, the JP Morgan Health Care Conference witnessed strong deal-making activity. For instance, Merck agreed to acquire cancer drug developer Harpoon Therapeutics for roughly $680 million, highlighting continued interest in oncology cancer therapies. Meanwhile, Novartis…
The global biotech funding landscape in 2023: U.S. leads while Europe and China make strides
In 2023, the U.S. continued to demonstrate its position as the biotech funding leader, commanding over one-third, 35%, of the global investment in the sector. Overall, U.S. biotech firms attracted $56.79 billion in funding, according to a survey of Crunchbase data. Next in line was China, which contributed about 12.7% to the global funding pool,…
What’s next for biotech? Q4 2023 funding trends point beyond the usual suspects
Oncology may continue be one of the hottest sectors across the pharma sector, but other therapeutic areas are catching up in terms of innovation and investment. While oncology and hematology jointly accounted for about one-third of the new FDA approvals in 2023, investors are increasingly betting on precision medicine, advanced drug delivery systems and the use of…
Pharma M&A activity primed for another high-flying year in 2024
Despite challenging interest rates and regulatory environment, pharma M&A activity surged in 2023 with deal volume up more than 30% from the prior year based on a review of more than 200 acquisitions since 2018. The total disclosed deal value in 2023 also more than doubled the prior year’s tally to surpass $100 billion. While…
50 of the best-funded biotechs of 2023
As the year draws to a close, it is clear that molecular science and diagnostics is the hottest funding area in the biotech industry. In an analysis of 50 of the best-funded biotechs of 2023 focused on human health, molecular and science and diagnostics startups collectively attracting roughly $945 million, dwarfing the figures in other…
Five insights on COVID-19 vaccine side effects
To date, there have been more than 770 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and nearly 7 million deaths from the virus, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Vaccines remain one of the most potent tools in blunting the severity of SARS-CoV-2 infection, and vaccine developers have distributed more than 13.5 billion vaccine doses to date.…
30 biotech startups making waves
The biotech industry is facing a reckoning in 2023. To date, roughly 100 biopharmas have cut workers this year, matching the total number of layoffs in the sector in 2022. Many biotech startups have been hit hard. The wave of job cuts comes on the heels of a biotech boom following the COVID-19 pandemic, when…
Assessing the techbio landscape: hype or substance?
The venture capital firm Artis Ventures, founded in 2001, coined the term “techbio” sector to describe biotech platforms where technology and engineering take the lead in advancing drug discovery and biomanufacturing. In circa 2019, the firm contributed to shaping the techbio landscape by setting up venture capital fund named Artis techbio that bridges the gap…
Nvidia exec: Generative AI can turn every biologist into a computer scientist — and vice versa
On a recent visit to Nvidia’s headquarters in Santa Clara, I had the chance to speak with Kimberly Powell, the company’s vice president and general manager of healthcare. After asking about the pharma industry’s surging interest in AI, Powell remarked, “Every pharma knows who Nvidia is now.” Curious, I asked her, “How long has that…
A checklist for unlocking the promise of AI in clinical trials
AI algorithms offer a myriad of advantages for clinical trials. AI techniques can, for instance, support patient enrollment and site selection, improve data quality and enhance patient outcomes. AI algorithms — combined with an effective digital infrastructure — can also help aggregate and manage clinical trial data in real time, as Deloitte has noted. Last…
Raising the efficiency floor and innovation ceiling with generative AI in drug discovery
Large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT promise advances that extend beyond capturing public interest. Because transformer models like GPT have an architecture that supports the understanding of language in context, they point to an array of novel possibilities for scientific research. “The transformer architecture is critical,” according to Michael Connell, the chief operating officer…
CGT demands vision, partnership and patient-centricity to transform healthcare
As personalized medicine continues to progress, cell and gene therapy (CGT) development is poised to enable tremendous medical breakthroughs. Unlike traditional treatments which merely manage symptoms, CGT could treat the root biological cause of many diseases: the faulty genes. “The cell and gene therapy space is truly exciting. What this ultimately means for patients and…
XOMA acquires Ixinity’s commercial payment and milestone rights in $9.6M
Biotech royalty aggregator XOMA (Nasdaq:XOMA) has acquired the commercial payment and part of the milestone rights to Ixinity (trenonacog alfa), a hemophilia B therapy originally from Aptevo Therapeutics (Nasdaq:APVO). The aggregator expects the move to bolster its royalty and milestone portfolio, potentially providing consistent cash flow and ramping up its royalty aggregation strategy. The acquired…
San Francisco mayor hopes to woo biotech to fill office vacancies
San Francisco Mayor London Breed has suggested that vacant downtown office spaces should be made available for biotech companies to expand, according to the San Francisco Business Times. The biotech industry could help breathe new life into the area, Breed argued. She highlighted a 5% life sciences vacancy rate in the city in contrast to…
Why hospital biobanks should supply biotechs
When it comes to using biospecimens for research, the saying “garbage in, garbage out” applies (Compton, 2018). This maxim has been a driving force in biospecimen science: a field in which the focus is pre-analytical factors affecting biospecimen quality. It has also been a driving force in the professionalization of biobanking. As a result, the…
Private equity and SPACs in the biopharma and biotech landscape
During the past few years, the biopharma and biotech markets have seen rapid growth. The global biotechnology market was worth $266 billion in 2019 is projected to reach $505 billion by 2026.1 In those strategic and important markets, what roles do private equity and Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) play? An overview of the biotech…
Answering the CDMO shortage: A new paradigm for drug development
What can the pharma industry do about the critical shortage of contract manufacturing organization (CMO) and contract development and manufacturing company (CDMO) facilities? For a growing number of young entrepreneurial drug companies, the answer is a middle ground between building their own facilities and outsourcing to the saturated CMO/CDMO market. This middle ground lies in…
How COVID-19 has affected Big Pharma and biotech
Biotechnology traces its roots to the Neolithic era when early civilizations discovered how to ferment grains to prepare alcoholic brews and bread. It wasn’t until genetic engineering became mainstream in the mid-1970s, however, that biotechnology, as we know it today, was launched. The field continues to evolve today. The advent of new technology has revolutionized the market…