Emerging biotech

Biotech’s next IPO wave is taking shape, but the companies lining up are not all approaching the same starting line.

Electra Therapeutics recently set terms for a proposed offering of $325 million at the midpoint of its anticipated pricing, while Adarx Pharmaceuticals has filed without a price range. Elsewhere there are much smaller offerings and corporate carve-outs whose announced plans have yet to become completed deals.

Investors and advisers in recent interviews described a market willing to fund drug development, but demanding evidence of what the next round of capital would accomplish. Jordan Saxe, Nasdaq’s head of healthcare listings, pointed to the need for clinical data and a strong investor base to drum up support for a company. Speaking about IPOs generally in July, Dr. Jim Healy, managing partner of Sofinnova Investments, emphasized building an investor base and analyst following that can buoy a company after its debut. 

Andrew Lam, a managing director at Ally Bridge Group, put the discipline more bluntly in July: “They are investing in real drugs and not science projects.” That assessment still holds, Lam said in a recent email, pointing to clinical-stage biotechs in areas of investor interest, including immunology and inflammation, as prominent among companies going public this year.

An IPO, in other words, is not graduation day. It is a public funding round — and the company must explain what the money buys.

These eight IPO prospects offer different tests of which clinical programs investors will finance, how far that money can carry them and what it takes to build lasting public-market support. Disclaimer upfront: These amount to a watch list, not a prediction that all eight will list this year. The company assessments below draw on public filings and company responses, alongside experts’ general market observations.

1. Electra Therapeutics

Electra is the most immediate test. Its September amendment proposed selling about 21.7 million shares at $14 to $16 each, or roughly $325 million in gross proceeds at the midpoint, before any additional shares sold under the underwriters’ option.

Its lead antibody, ipsoprubart, targets immune cells involved in secondary hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis, a life-threatening inflammatory syndrome. The company is running a phase 2/3 registrational program and expects to complete enrollment in the second half of 2027.

Electra says the proceeds, together with existing funds, would support that program through topline results, regulatory submission work and commercial preparation, alongside earlier programs. The test is whether encouraging early human results can hold up in a larger study — and whether public investors will finance the work needed to find out.

2. Adarx Pharmaceuticals

Adarx’s September filing brings a different financing proposition: a pipeline of small interfering RNA therapies that reduce production of disease-related proteins. Its most advanced candidate, onvuzosiran, is in phase 3 to prevent hereditary angioedema attacks, with topline data expected by the end of 2027.

The filing also describes an agreement for AbbVie to buy shares in a concurrent private placement, targeting approximately 4.9% ownership after the transactions, and subject to a $100 million cap. That’s not a commitment to invest the full $100 million and the placement depends on completion of the IPO.

Adarx had not disclosed an IPO share count or price range in its latest amendment. For Adarx, the eventual offering terms will help clarify how much capital it can put behind those programs alongside AbbVie’s proposed investment.

3. Kalohexis

Obesity drugs are the hottest ticket in biotech. That may also be Kalohexis’ problem.

The Illinois startup announced a confidential IPO submission in July without disclosing a size or price range. Its pitch includes an experimental obesity pill and a second drug intended to treat cancer cachexia, the wasting syndrome that causes weight and muscle loss.

In a July interview about the market broadly, Ally Bridge Group’s Lam said crowded categories raise the bar for clinical differentiation. For Kalohexis, the question is what human evidence will distinguish its approach, and how much capital it needs to reach that result. A confidential submission doesn’t establish when a company will go public.

4. NuvOx Therapeutics

NuvOx’s latest amendment filing, submitted Sept. 16, proposed raising about $20 million on the NYSE American to cover a short stretch of drug development. A final IPO prospectus had not appeared in the SEC record reviewed for this story.

The biotech’s lead therapy, NanO2, is designed to improve oxygen delivery to tissue, an approach the company is pursuing across glioblastoma, acute ischemic stroke and acute respiratory distress syndrome. Its July filing reported that patients in a phase 2b glioblastoma trial were in follow-up. 

The funding limit is explicit: NuvOx said the expected proceeds would support active and planned trials and preparation for a pivotal glioblastoma study, but additional capital would be needed to complete the future trials required for an FDA application.

5. Tarsier Pharma

Reaching the next trial is one financing challenge. Convincing investors to fund another pivotal study after a setback is another. That is the task facing Tarsier.

The Israeli company is developing a steroid-free treatment for inflammatory eye diseases and plans to use IPO cash to fund another phase 3 trial. Its July SEC amendment proposed roughly $50 million at the midpoint, but a final IPO prospectus had not appeared in the SEC record reviewed for this story.

For Tarsier, the next pivotal trial carries added weight. Its previous phase 3 trial missed its primary efficacy endpoint. The planned trial uses a revised primary endpoint focused on intraocular pressure safety under an agreement with the FDA; that agreement doesn’t guarantee approval.

6. Salspera

Salspera’s IPO filing remains active, the company told PharmaVoice this week, declining to discuss the offering’s details while it is in process. Its March amendment proposed an IPO of about $85 million at the midpoint.

The company’s lead treatment, Saltikva, uses engineered bacteria to deliver an immune-stimulating payload into tumors. The filing said the expected net proceeds would fund a phase 3 pancreatic cancer study and phase 2 studies in osteosarcoma and colorectal cancer.

7. Option Therapeutics

Options’ IPO is on hold pending market conditions, a company spokesperson told PharmaVoice this week. The proposed carve-out from its parent company BioVie centers on BIV201, a formulation of terlipressin for complications of advanced liver disease.

According to Option’s March prospectus, the company had never operated independently, and BioVie would retain at least 60% ownership after the offering.

Its March filing proposed roughly $20 million in gross proceeds, down from about $25 million in January. The spokesperson said the expected proceeds would fund the phase 3 trial through completion. With the offering on hold, that remains a financing goal rather than secured funding.

The proposed carve-out also raises a question of corporate readiness. As IPO communications adviser Kimberly Ha of KKH Advisors explained, going public requires a long build across finance, controls, governance, leadership and storytelling. Alongside the drug’s prospects, investors have to assess whether the company around it can stand on its own.

8. Grifols (The U.S. biopharma edition)

Grifols brings that question of independence to a very different business. The Spanish plasma-medicine maker announced plans in March to take its U.S. biopharma business public. The proposed offering would sell a minority stake in that business, while Grifols would retain majority ownership and its existing listing in Spain.

The company’s stated goals include reducing debt and supporting growth. Its SEC filings describe a potential U.S. company with its own board, management team and governance structure, while Grifols would retain majority control. 

For investors, the question is how much financial and operational independence that structure would provide, and how the proceeds and obligations would be divided with its parent. The March announcement did not set an offering size or timetable.

As pharma manufacturing investment skyrockets, new state and federal government initiatives have poured into regional biotech hubs eager for a slice of the pie.

This year alone, Pennsylvania and New York launched new programs, while Kansas City and Central Virginia won federal funding aimed at strengthening their biotech industries.  

The recent investments “are great signals, especially at a time when we're tracking hundreds of billions of dollars in major CapEx [capital expenditure] from global pharma industry leaders,” said Matt Gardner, sector president for life sciences at CBRE Enterprise, a global commercial real estate services and investment firm. “It's generational. I've never seen anything quite like this.”

The government incentives are aimed at attracting biotech companies to their shores. But so far, the investments have not been substantial enough on their own to sway major relocations. 

“Companies are not making decisions on where to build a new factory just on that,” said Seth Martindale, a CBRE vice chairman and member of its site selection and incentives group. Instead, companies look for broader infrastructure factors like a strong workforce, labor market and education base.

Even so, the programs can plant the seeds for emerging hubs that could attract major manufacturing projects down the road. 

Hubs of the future

Government incentives and investments often “complement an existing industry base,” Gardner said, such as Pennsylvania’s new $125 million Innovate in PA 2.0 program, which will provide capital to startups, create a statewide clinical trial network and enhance the Commonwealth's innovation network.

New York’s fiscal 2027 budget likewise includes $65 million for its Bolstering Biotech Initiative, which will support venture investment, workforce development, performance-based commercialization grants and a statewide clinical trial consortium.

But public investments can also lay the groundwork for future hubs. The Richmond-Petersburg region was selected in July for $16 million through the EDA’s Tech Hubs program, following a $1 million NSF Engines Development Award in 2024 and a $52.9 million Build Back Better Regional Challenge award in 2022.

“We're seeing a dramatic surge in large capital expenditure in Richmond, Virginia, so they clearly were preparing the ground there. They've got tremendous public-private partnership infrastructure. And now we're seeing the fruits of that with a number of major investments,” Gardner said. “All these things have developed these ecosystems for innovation.”

Eli Lilly is among the major investors. The large pharma announced plans last year to build a $5 billion manufacturing facility for its emerging bioconjugate platform and monoclonal antibody portfolio just west of Richmond.

AstraZeneca is also investing in Virginia with a new $4.5 billion manufacturing facility in Albemarle County, about 80 miles outside Richmond. 

Kansas City could be pharma’s next target. Another up-and-coming hub that’s been building its life sciences infrastructure, the region just received a $38.1 million funding package for the Kansas City BioHub, including $33.5 million from the EDA’s Tech Hubs program. 

Gardner said Kansas City has been working on a “formula that is designed to create some strengths in the ecosystem or harness some things that they’ve got as a base, and attract and create jobs around that.”

Pharma’s shifting frontiers

The growth of biotech hubs beyond Boston and the Bay Area signals a major shift in how pharma companies think about where to invest and build.

About 20 years ago, pharma companies would set up their manufacturing facilities about an hour outside of these major research hubs, Gardner said.

That pattern is changing.

“Some of the recent announcements are going to completely new locations,” Gardner said.

He cites places like Richmond, as well as Alabama, where the Birmingham Biotechnology Hub received a $44 million Commerce Department grant in January 2025. Less than a year later, Lilly announced plans to invest more than $6 billion in a manufacturing facility about 90 minutes away in Huntsville. Lilly said one of the reasons it chose the site is partly because of its proximity to the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology, which supports workforce training and research.

That investment shows that pharma companies don’t need to be an hour away from the Bay Area or Boston to “get smart people to their facilities anymore,” Martindale said.

The recent uptick in government investments also signals a public commitment to developing the infrastructure needed to bolster biotech’s ongoing growth in emerging hubs — something Martindale believes is “actually more important than the money.”

“If there's not the political will to support, for example, the job training programs, life science falls down,” he said.

Sponsored content

By Cytiva

Why the industry’s biggest challenge is no longer innovation, it’s digital execution

Biopharma has never had more scientific potential. New modalities are expanding what is possible in medicine, and manufacturers have access to increasingly advanced science and equipment, from automated bioreactors and single-use systems to predictive analytics and other digital solutions, like automation and artificial intelligence (AI).

Despite all this, adoption lags far behind other industries. Surveys have revealed that, even in 2025, over a third of biopharma companies are still in “early exploration” or have not started their digital transformations (1). And, even if an organization commits to digital adoption, implementation often becomes fragmented by business priorities, bioprocessing silos, and workflow stages. Indeed, the industry still struggles to execute consistently and at scale.

In a recent discussion with Ashley Howard, Senior Product Director for Automation and Digital at Cytiva, one theme came through: “The industry is not limited by innovation; it’s limited by execution,” she says. “Execution breaks down not at the point of strategy, but when organizations decide whether to change.”

Digital execution is the bottleneck at the heart of modern bioprocessing and it’s becoming harder for biopharma to ignore. As therapies become more complex and increasingly personalized, manufacturing timelines are being squeezed—and the pressure to reduce time-to-market will only intensify. Delays driven by inefficiency or slow decision-making don’t just increase cost, they impact competitiveness and, more importantly, delay patient therapies. “It’s the ability to embrace the capabilities into day-to-day operations that will begin to differentiate organizations,” Ashley says.

When you look at day-to-day manufacturing processes, the same challenges persist—limited visibility, fragmented data collection and processing, and a surprising level of manual decision-making. That reliance on human intervention isn’t just by design; it reflects a lack of confidence in the systems themselves.

The problem is not lack of digital technology—it’s when and how to use it

PAT, advanced sensors, hybrid modeling, digital twins, and predictive analytics are not new. The challenge is when and how they are applied. Too often, digital and automation are introduced after processes and validation pathways are already defined, turning what should be foundational capabilities into costly retrofits and limiting their potential impact.

Overcoming adoption barriers to automation and digital technologies

Biopharma has historically been able to tolerate manufacturing inefficiency, prioritizing R&D over scalability and digital maturity. That is changing as new modalities, faster timelines, and flexible bioprocessing make speed, scalability, and reliability increasingly important. The existing model is showing its limits: fragmented data slows decisions, poor observability delays detection of variability, and limited interoperability leaves digital initiatives stuck between ambition and execution.

Learning from other industries, without copying them

Industries like semiconductors and automotive are further ahead because digital was designed in, not added on, allowing sensing, automation, data, and process control to operate as one system. Biopharma faces different constraints, but manufacturers and technology providers alike need to make digital easier to adopt by focusing less on what is technically possible and more on what is practical. The opportunity is to simplify adoption, remain vendor-agnostic, and provide a repeatable path from automation ambition to execution.

Enhanced process observability isn’t the issue, adoption is the challenge

For years, the industry has talked about moving beyond basic monitoring toward real-time monitoring of critical parameters using sensors. The US Food and Drug Administration’s process analytical technology (PAT) guidance from 2004 (2) was meant to encourage organizations to adopt real-time advanced sensors, but this has been slower than hoped, particularly at commercial manufacturing scale (3).

The challenge is not the availability of measurement technologies, but implementing them consistently at scale. Cost, operational burden, contamination risk, and regulatory requirements mean even monitoring of pH, temperature, dissolved oxygen, and flow can be difficult to standardize. While the industry is moving toward predictive, model-driven processes, many organizations are still working through the fundamentals of real-time monitoring.

The next competitive advantage will come from integrated intelligence

The future of bioprocessing will not be defined by individual technologies. It will be defined by how well sensing, automation, data, modeling, and workflows come together. Despite the growing focus on AI, our future as an industry doesn’t start with AI, it starts at the ground level.

“You can’t just throw AI at it—you have to build the foundations first,” Ashley says.

That means connected systems, usable and actionable data, and having access to scalable architecture. It also means taking a more practical approach to change: “Stop trying to design the perfect system—just get started,” she advises.

The shift from ambition to action is what unlocks progress.

From technical possibility to operational reality

The industry no longer needs to prove that digital can create value. That’s already been established. The real challenge is unlocking that value consistently, and that requires a shift in mindset. Automation and digital cannot remain a later-stage enhancement. Likewise, process observability cannot be optional. Data cannot stay trapped in systems that limit its usefulness, and digital transformation cannot rely on large-scale programs that never progress beyond planning stages.

In short, the risk isn’t doing too much, it’s not doing anything at all. Says Ashley, “We often start with the big vision—and never actually get started.”

The organizations that move forward won’t be those with the most technology. They will be the ones that design for integration early, reduce the cost of change, and act on insights faster. In modern bioprocessing, the biggest limitation is no longer what the industry can imagine, it’s what the industry can consistently execute. And right now, that execution gap remains the industry’s biggest constraint.

Future focus: moving from innovation to digital execution

Closing the execution gap requires a deeper look across the lifecycle—from how data is generated, to how decisions are made and how systems scale. Increasing observability in bioprocessing, steering a practical course toward digital transformation, ensuring reliability in process performance, and shifting toward model-driven manufacturing are four key initiatives that will help many biopharma organizations move from idea to true digital execution. Read the full article here for more insights.

References

1. Cole C. Digital transformation in biopharma: the gap between hype and implementation. Original BioPharm International; repost LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/digital-transformation-biopharma-gap-between-hype-christopher-cole-gynxe/. Published October 9, 2025. Accessed June 26, 2026.
2. US Food and Drug Administration. PAT—A framework for innovative pharmaceutical development, manufacturing, and quality assurance: guidance for industry. Published October 2004. Accessed June 26, 2026. https://www.fda.gov/media/71012/download
3. Dutton G. Process monitors and controls shift towards unified platforms. Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News. https://www.genengnews.com/topics/bioprocessing/process-monitors-and-controls-shift-towards-unified-platforms/. Published September 15, 2025. Accessed June 26, 2026.

It was during a meeting at the White House in 2019 with top Trump administration officials and biotech CEOs that Patroski Lawson’s curiosity was first piqued about the rise of China. After the group discussed the Asian country’s rapid ascent in biotech, Lawson’s interest was amplified in other conversations with biotech executives. 

“They were all talking about China, and they were talking about the need for the U.S. to figure out what we want to do, how we want to grow our industry, preserve it, protect it,” said Lawson, the CEO of KPM Group, a biotech lobbying firm. “I thought, ‘Wow, we need an organization to really think strategically about this.’”

That realization ultimately motivated Lawson to found the Washington D.C.-based American Biotech Innovation Alliance, which launched this month. Lawson describes the organization as more of a think tank than a traditional trade organization with a focus on broad strategy, not on the day-to-day ins and outs of biotech like many other industry groups. 

While China may have been the impetus for ABIA’s formation, its focus will be squarely on supporting America’s biotechs, Lawson said. About 30 companies have already joined the group, including Moderna and Rocket Pharmaceuticals, and Lawson is aiming to grow its ranks to 50 members as it creates its “Biotech Vision 2030” strategy.

Although the U.S. has moved to address national security issues that have arisen from China’s growing prominence in the drug landscape, including the recent passage of the Biosecure Act, Lawson says ABIA’s goal isn’t to tamp down competitors. 

“I think stifling innovation anywhere in the world is not good for patients in the United States. It's a bad look,” Lawson said.

Even though the biotech industry in this country is already strong, it was built without intentional coordination. 

“Imagine what we will do when we are all working together, and we’re singing off the same sheet of music,” he said.

Here, Lawson explains the organization’s action plan and when it will begin making inroads at the nation’s capital.

This interview has been edited for brevity and style. 

PHARMAVOICE: What are the biggest challenges that you feel the biotech industry is facing right now? 

PATROSKI LAWSON: One is defining biotech. You go to a cocktail party and [people ask]: “Who are your clients?” I work in the biotech sector. “Oh, you mean Pfizer?” No, that's actually not what I mean. Biotech, the companies that are the innovators — that's not to say Pfizer isn't innovating, because they are. Let's be clear, innovation is happening across the ecosystem. But by and large, when you ask people about where the breakthroughs are coming from, the new therapies, they're coming from small innovator biotech companies with less than 100 employees. 

The second is the lack of a coordinated vision for what America is going to look like in the next 50 years, as it relates to biotech innovation. Are we going to be a nation that leads the world in breakthrough therapies? Or are we going to be a nation that squanders the last 50 years of amazing science and innovation that's come out of this country?  

The third is regulatory challenges. There’s a lack of certainty.  I don't care if you run a small restaurant or a large multinational corporation; a lack of certainty is a problem. It feels like right now things are a little volatile. 

What factors do you think will improve the biotech industry?

The first thing you hear from everyone is that we've got to make early-stage development much faster because time is money. 

[And then] obviously, calming the FDA down. We need calmness, an agency that is committed to science, committed to data, that is free from political influence is definitely important. 

We [also] need to reimagine a new social contract with the patient community. If you're working in rare diseases, particularly in ultra-rare, these companies know all of these patients by name. They know the caregivers by name and patient advocacy community leaders by name. I know it's really hard when you're dealing with huge patient populations to do that. But we need to think more carefully about the social contract we have with the American patients. That could be a part of this conversation as well.

How do you picture your organization will advocate for biotech?

As we start formulating the strategy, we're going to need to start communicating and educating. I like to call it education versus lobbying. We want members to truly understand how valuable this ecosystem is to the United States of America. That's No. 1. We're going to start right away educating members of Congress. As the plan gets baked more, we will obviously be in constant communication with the biotech caucus and others up there to start socializing some of these concepts. Any national strategy is going to have to be endorsed by the federal government.

Five or six of us can put together a national strategy in a weekend. The real work is building a consensus. That's the grind, that's the grassroots movement aspect of this and that’s why we think the ABIA has a chance here, because of the way we’re structuring it.  

What is the timeline for putting together your plan, and what does the process look like?

I would like to start socializing the presidential campaigns as early as next summer. The idea is to have the plan, different deliverables, where we're touching base with the community. The first deliverable will be: What is the definition of biotech, and what does it mean to the ecosystem? What does it mean to America? We hope to have something ready for the JP Morgan [Healthcare] Conference in January.

We're going to be meeting all summer in small committees in different places around the country and the rest of this year to help get the best ideas from a lot of different groups.

We'll start writing the plan and have the final report, hopefully by the end of next year. We want to use 2028 to go on the road and help inform presidential campaigns, state campaigns, rolling up our sleeves with the messaging to get the word out about what we need to do. In January 2029, with the new Congress, if we've done our work well, we're ready to inform policy. If we can do it sooner, great. 

If you succeed in what you are trying to accomplish, what does the biotech ecosystem look like five years from now? 

[A recent article noted that] 40% of the early-stage clinical molecules were coming out of China, whereas 10 years ago it was 8%. It would be nice in five years from now, if America decides that this is an area that we want to lead in, that we've turned the corner and 50% to 75% of those early-stage molecules are being discovered in America. 

The other [vision] would be perhaps the 48th president of the United States has a strategy, and that he or she, in the State of the Union, is talking to Congress the same way [John F.] Kennedy did in 1963, when he gave his famous moon speech to rally the nation and ask for funding for the federal government to help make that happen. We're going to invest X number of dollars over the next 10 years to really make biotech a national strategic imperative for the country. 

If we do nothing else but help change the perception of biotech, biopharma and pharmaceuticals in this country in the next five to 10 years, that would be huge.

In focus with: Natalie Ma, chief business officer and co-founder at Deep Origin

Deep Origin’s vision: What if “virtual humans” and in silico trials could become stand-ins for real humans in clinical trials?

That’s the long-term vision of Deep Origin, a computational drug discovery company that combines molecular physics with AI to create predictive models for clinical trials.

Rather than failing faster, “the idea is to stop doing experiments that will fail,” said Ma.

“What we're after is the quality of the prediction itself. That’s the predictivity crisis, a systematic gap between what works in preclinical models and what happens in the clinic,” she said.

In addition to advancing its drug discovery platform with a variety of partners and working to better predict drug safety, Deep Origin is also simulating human biological systems at the cellular and organ levels to eventually build a complete “virtual human.”

But it’s a long, step-by-step journey to chase that larger goal. In the meantime, Deep Origin is tackling more bite-sized industry challenges.

“We don’t position our immediate work as ‘replacing’ clinical trials,” she said. “Right now, it’s about reducing late safety failures and animal use, and giving programs more confidence going into the clinic.”

Deep Origin received a $31.7 million contract from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health’s Catalyst program to replace animal testing with an FDA-qualifiable in silico prediction platform that will test how a medicine moves through and affects the human body.

Ma said it will bring its first organ models online later this year or early next year.

“The goal is to produce more accurate, human-relevant safety predictions before a molecule advances, bringing organ-level models online, tracing predicted drug-induced liver injury or tox signals back to specific off-target interactions and using those insights to redesign or de-prioritize risky compounds,” Ma said.

Why it matters: Drug developers are “consummate gamblers,” Ma said. They face a 90% clinical failure rate and still knowingly embark on a decade-plus, multimillion dollar odyssey to bring drugs to market.

Drug developers are burdened by other limitations, too, from relying on animal testing to navigating ultra-rare disease states with so few patients that traditional clinical trials are tough to pull off.

But Ma envisions a world where “we get predictive enough, you [can] run an in silico clinical trial, and clinical trials are a formality.”

“You can parameterize virtual humans for different genetic backgrounds and comorbidities, and over time that could inform in silico clinical trial concepts. In its final form, researchers will be able to add a small molecule structure and a dose to the virtual human and see the outcomes across organs,” she said. “But that’s a long regulatory horizon, gated by validation and dialogue with the FDA.”

Here, Ma expands on the company’s vision.

The interview has been lightly edited for brevity and style.

PHARMAVOICE: How are your partners currently using the platform?

NATALIE MA: We work with partners in three ways: discovery partnerships that put our systems and scientists against a partner's hardest programs; direct SaaS access to the platform and co-development of Deep Origin-originated programs. In practice, partners use our platform across the preclinical pipeline, from prioritizing targets by efficacy and toxicity risk, designing and filtering molecules in hit discovery, to prioritizing leads in optimization. We haven't done a rescue of a program after a toxicity signal or patient population segmentation, but we think our models could be adapted to these as well. 

Because most collaborations are confidential, we talk about the workflows and the impact rather than specific deal structures. A lot of the value comes from being able to increase success rate in the lab while still finding high-quality hits and then layering safety predictions on top, so what moves forward has a much better chance of working in humans, not just in animals.

We also see tremendous, bidirectional value in working directly with partner team scientists: they bring specific incredible knowledge, while we work to impart and educate on AI methods. It's incredibly important each team knows how to use, weigh and integrate the evidence or recommendations from our models, because despite anyone's claims, no model is correct 100% of the time, particularly because there is often context only the researchers know.  

Would each “virtual human” be an individual unique from each other? 

That’s the framework that underpins the “virtual human” work. We can run models on a part (a single type of cell or one organ), using parameters that are an average of a population, or as specific as a single individual. While we are focused currently on preclinical stage work, we have actually discussed with some clinicians and industry the creation of individualized models for patients to predict response to treatments. There's been a lot of interest! 

I want to note some distinction here with “digital twin," which usually connotes a “statistical average” of patient parameters to represent a patient. Those models are generally built on population statistics. In contrast, the virtual human is a system of interconnected models, modeling human biology across multiple organ systems, within which there are models of multiple cell types, within which there are models of gene, protein, macromolecule and small molecule interactions. There are representations of biology across scales to capture the nuance of individuals.

Is this idea of a “virtual human” being pursued by other companies/research institutions? How is yours different or similar?

To some extent yes, though less than I would expect, in part due to the large number of discrete disciplines the work spans.

From a perspective of reducing animal use and using new approach methodologies that are more human relevant, there are many in industry, academia and nonprofits pursuing this. This is wonderful for drug development because it means we can mature multiple human-relevant models at once to inform which molecules will succeed as drugs. It also works well for us as model builders, as they provide yet another source of data to create increasingly predictive models.

Computationally, the field is counterintuitively sparser, with much of it focused on building property-specific machine learning predictors (which tend to fail beyond their training data and don't get you mechanistic explainability) or foundational models of chemistry/biology (very black-box and limited in explainability) or in building models at one scale of biology (a virtual cell, which begs the question of what cell type and limits the questions you can ask of the system, or just focusing on docking, which is good but incomplete — a binder does not a drug make). 

We tie models together across scales — from quantum mechanical interactions and docking, through protein dynamics and cell‑state changes, up to organ‑level exposure and whole‑body physiology — so safety questions can be traced back to concrete mechanisms.

And because our models are grounded in physics, every prediction comes with an explanation a scientist can inspect and test, which is crucial for partners and regulators who have to act on the outputs of our work.

Since stepping down from his most recent leadership gig in biotech, Dr. Jeremy Levin has found his new calling as an industry advocate of sorts. His new book, “Biotech in the Balance: Saving a Strategic Industry in an Age of Distrust,” was published in May and lays out a roadmap for how industry leaders can elevate the sector to safeguard innovation in the U.S.

Levin’s perspective comes from decades of seeing pharma and biotech from multiple angles.

As a business development head at Bristol Myers Squibb from 2007 to 2012, Levin devised a transformative “string of pearls” dealmaking strategy that helped the company build a more diversified and innovation-focused pipeline. 

After leaving BMS, he grabbed the CEO reins at Teva Pharmaceuticals, the world’s largest generic drugmaker. But after steering it through a tumultuous year, Levin stepped away from Big Pharma leadership entirely. 

A few years later, Levin got his groove back in the biotech world as CEO of Ovid Therapeutics. A clinical-stage neuroscience company that’s tackling challenging CNS disorders with first-in-class drugs, Ovid embodies the innovative mindset of biotech. And biotech’s value as a birthplace for transformative medicines is something Levin wants more Americans to know about.  

“It’s time that biotech companies grew up and created an identity … and that the person on the street knows they are an innovation engine for America,” Levin said.

If biotech leaders can open more eyes to the impact of their work, the public will get behind policies that support the industry’s R&D. Levin also believes biotech should distance itself from the controversies and challenges plaguing the rest of pharma.

“The biggest change I’d like is to embed the concept that we need to re-bond with the patient,” he said. “If we’re able to do that and secure their support then a lot of the legislative wrecking balls that get thrown at pharma will not be coming for biotech.” 

Levin transitioned from CEO at Ovid to chair this year and continues to serve as a board member for the lobbying group Bio, which positions him well to spread his rallying cry.

Here, Levin explains why the time was right to make a bold declaration to lawmakers and biotech.

This interview has been edited for brevity and style.

PHARMAVOICE: Why did you decide to write this book?

DR. JEREMY LEVIN: One very fundamental reason was that extraordinary science — the best it’s ever been in the industry — is facing an astonishing and acute disruption to the system that underpins it. That started a long time ago … but an acceleration occurred this year. The FDA was disrupted, core questions about scientific fact were called into question, NIH funding was cut, immigration was disrupted — and all of this occurred while public health capabilities were being eroded.

The extraordinary impacts of the rise of China makes fixing this now an imperative, unless we want to lose the leadership we’ve accrued and end up not with a premier situation but a diminished situation. The bottom line is that innovation will not stop, but capital will begin to flow to where innovation is. And the very extraordinary things that were developed in San Francisco, Boston, Seattle and elsewhere that were dependent on high-risk capital will migrate away. So I felt it was time to say something.

In your book, you speak to a broad range of stakeholders in the industry — from biotech executives to lawmakers. Which audience were you targeting the most?

The first and most overwhelmingly important group is legislators and policymakers. My message for them is straightforward. All this work and innovation has given the biotech industry these capabilities, but we don’t recognize it as an industry. If we were to say that biotech is a strategic asset like we do with housing, defense or agriculture, it would become a different kind of entity. Some countries have made biotech a priority and that’s why it’s growing so astonishingly fast. 

The issue is a refinement of policy. For example, if you look at the housing industry, there are long-term tax credits and they are an extraordinary part of the market, but there are no incentives like that in [biotech]. People need houses, but people also need health, and we can deliver that. 

Biotech is also a long-term industry, but people treat it like it’s something to trade every day. We have binary events and [investors] hold their money until we get those events. Adjustments to the tax code would not cost a penny in the near-term, but would give immense returns in the long-term.  

For CEOs and other leaders in industry, the message is simple: You have in your hands a treasure, but it’s a system. Nobody will protect it unless you do. You need to stand up and talk about why this is important economically. 

You also need to think about transparency, and closing the gap between us and patients. The lack of public trust that has developed is driven not by biotech but by pharma. Concerns about price increases, most favored nation policies … these are not biotech issues. These are pharma issues. One is distribution and [the] manufacturing industry, and the other is the innovation industry. But the innovation industry is being colored with the same chalk as pharma. 

What that means is that our obligation as CEOs is to focus on issues that are critical, open up about the importance of science and be transparent about how you make drugs and your clinical trials. That could translate into better clinical trial enrollment, for example, and eventually trust. Trust is not something soft — it’s hard economics. Those who distrust us will vote for legislation that will punish us.

Investors also play a critical role in biotech. What’s your message to them? 

We have some of the bravest investors in the world, but there’s been a structural shift, and some have moved away from innovation to safer bets. Their desire is to avoid the downturns, and they are voting with their money and backing later-stage entities as opposed to early-stage candidates where innovation exists. They are not betting on the future. My request to them is, let’s think about this as a strategic industry. Don’t back early-stage entities but back the genuine future of innovation, the high-risk, high-reward long-term bets. 

In three to five years, those risks will be taken to places like China and we’ll see the vast majority of novel drugs emerging from China. That has direct consequences, but if we take action today, we can reverse this. America has the most competitive system in the world but it starts with Congress saying it’s strategic, CEOs adopting this approach and capital funders thinking about long-term investments as opposed to trade. 

China notably put a plan in place to support its biotech industry many years ago and the country has since become a major R&D hub. What can the U.S. learn from China’s success?

We cannot and will not follow what they’re doing as a centralized state. But we can learn from their strategic plan and build on that. 

They said they were going to build API capabilities. In America, we exported that manufacturing — like a type of industrial colonialism. But we can make innovative manufacturing processes and we should do that. 

They also do phenomenal testing. They incentivize their people to work very hard. They streamlined their FDA. They started to bring into their country people who know science, they started to teach the younger generation and they are incredibly competitive today. And they changed their patent policy, so there’s an enormous rise in patents coming out of that country. We should learn from that. 

We need a similar declaration in the U.S. that we will remain the leader and provide our patients with the best innovation in the world.

What gives you hope that these kinds of goals might be achieved?

To draw an analogy — I don’t think anyone setting out from the East Coast to expand westward in a wagon had anything other than hope. They headed West and they thought they would find something.

I know about our extraordinary scientific base and that it’s burgeoning. I have colleagues in biotech that are so committed to finding benefits for patients. The base is there. Now we need the ear of those that are able to make changes. If enough of us can be galvanized, we will be successful. I’m heading West.

After a few sluggish years, pharma M&A and the overall market are rebounding. But investors are still playing it safe. 

In fact, a newsletter poll of PharmaVoice readers found that 28% believed that the “ease of fundraising” is the No. 1 way to measure the biotech market’s health.

"Fundraising is still not easy ... [and] I think this is not specific to us,” Dr. Alexander Gebauer, co-founder and executive chairman of Galimedix Therapeutics, told PharmaVoice at the BIO convention this month. “Many, many companies are struggling right now." 

A recent Evaluate report described biotech investment in the first quarter of 2026 as cautious but steady compared with last year. Venture capital dollars in biotech totaled $7.94 billion in the first quarter compared to $8.04 billion in Q4 of 2025. But investors are being selective, the report’s authors said.

Even in a tepid environment some companies have attracted sizable funding rounds. Isomorphic Labs, for example, announced a massive $2.1 billion series B round in May, marking the second major round of external funding for the London-based AI drug discovery company. It previously raised $600 million in the spring of 2025.

But as a subsidiary of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, Isomorphic has big backers, and is hardly a traditional small and scrappy biotech. 

The company emerged from Google DeepMind, which developed the transformative AlphaFold technology. AlphaFold predicts both protein shapes and how drug candidates bind to them, providing a critical edge in designing new medicines. Isomorphic already has established partnerships with several major drug companies, including Novartis, Eli Lilly and Johnson & Johnson. 

While Isomorphic’s performance shows that AI-driven platforms are still appealing to investors, several other traditional biotechs have raised significant funds this year, including the three below. 

More funds for ophthalmology

Ollin Biosciences announced $330 million in series B financing at the end of June as it looks to take the lead in two common ophthalmology conditions with its next-generation VEGF/Ang2 bispecific antibody, OLN324. The company’s funding round, one of the largest series B rounds in the last two years, was co-led by TCGX, a biotech-focused investment firm, along with its founding investor, Arch Venture Partners. 

Ollin is partnering with China’s Innovent Biologics to develop the drug, which is moving into phase 3. The candidate targets two leading causes of vision loss and blindness, diabetic macular edema and wet age-related macular degeneration. The company, which emerged from stealth with $100 million in funding in September 2025, could mount a challenge to Roche’s DME and wet macular degeneration drug Vabysmo. In a recent head-to-head trial OLN324 appeared to outperform the Roche drug in vision improvement and eye health for both conditions, according to Ollin.

Ollin’s recent funding round drew attention because investors have generally been more focused on oncology and weight-loss drugs, but interest in ophthalmology has been ramping up. The company plans to use the funds to support phase 3 drug development and advance another type of bispecific antibody for thyroid eye disease and Graves’ disease, OLN102, licensed from Shanghai-based VelaVigo.  

Ongoing momentum for autoimmune treatments

Interest in immune disease treatments remains high, and the field recently gained a new entrant, Beeline Medicines. The Bristol Myers Squibb spinout, backed by Bain Capital, was originally formed in July 2025. It emerged from stealth in April with $300 million in financing and will advance five in-licensed BMS immunology drugs aimed at conditions such as lupus, atopic dermatitis and psoriasis.

The company’s lead small molecule TLR7/8 inhibitor, afimetoran, is a once-daily pill for lupus erythematosus and is now in phase 2. That trial is expected to conclude at the end of the year and if all goes as planned, Beeline hopes a pivotal development program will follow. The treatment also notched a fast track designation from the FDA.

The company’s pipeline is diversified with a range of clinical-stage treatments including a phase 1 drug, BMS-986326, for atopic dermatitis and lupus, and a phase 2 TYK2 inhibitor, lomedeucitinib, targeting plaque psoriasis and potentially other rare immunological diseases. The company is also exploring two other early-stage treatments across several other indications, including inflammatory gastrointestinal conditions.

“Immune-mediated diseases remain an area of profound need, and we believe that Beeline Medicines is positioned to redefine treatment across multiple underserved autoimmune and inflammatory conditions,” said Dr. Nathalie Franchimont, chief medical officer of Beeline Medicines in a press release.

Dollars flow into longevity medicine

Longevity medicine, which has drawn substantial interest from billionaire investors, continues to attract capital as it moves from concept into the clinic. The startup New Limit showcased the field’s appeal when it closed a $435 million series C funding round this year backed by Founders Fund, co-founded by Peter Thiel, and Lilly Ventures, among others.

The company, now valued at an estimated $3.1 billion, was founded in 2021 by Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong to create medicines designed to roll back the biological clock in cells using epigenetic reprogramming. Buoyed by what company officials called a “breakthrough” prototype drug that reverses aging in human liver cells, the company now plans to move into the clinic as early as next year. 

“Our trial next year will reveal how liver age reprogramming translates into humans for the first time. Over the coming years, we will add new therapeutic programs and bring a diverse portfolio of therapies into the clinic,” the company said in a recent blog post.

The high-stakes bidding war that culminated last year between Novo Nordisk and Pfizer to acquire Metsera provided a clear illustration of just how motivated large pharmas are to stake their claim on up-and-coming candidates in the obesity space.

While Pfizer ultimately closed the deal, the scramble for new weight loss assets is only ramping up, as Big Pharma companies look to position themselves in a global market projected to reach $190 billion by 2035. 

In particular, companies are eyeing next-generation treatments that build on the slimming power of first-generation GLP-1s with fewer side effects and more patient-friendly dosing. 

But the scarcity of late-stage assets is positioning a handful of biotechs as potentially attractive acquisition targets, including the three companies below.

Viking Therapeutics

This San Diego-based clinical-stage biotech is considered a top acquisition target due to its later-stage candidates and strong clinical trial results.

Its lead GLP-1/GIP dual agonist candidate, VK2735, is being tested as both an injectable and a patient-friendly pill. The program is especially appealing to companies looking for a potentially quick on ramp to the market. The injectable is already in phase 3, and Viking plans to begin a registrational trial for the pill later this year.

Both versions of the drug demonstrated strong weight loss potential in phase 2. The injectable medication delivered mean body weight reductions up to 14.7% after 13 weekly doses compared to 12.2% for the oral version. Importantly, these early trials showed no evidence of the plateau that has plagued some other GLP-1 therapies.

But it hasn’t been all smooth sailing. The pill version hit some turbulence in its mid-stage trial when it showed a patient discontinuation rate above 20% across all doses due to side effects, such as vomiting, a finding that temporarily spooked investors.

While phase 3 results won’t be ready this year, the company anticipates a third-quarter readout for a phase 1 study that will help answer another critical question for obesity drugs: How much medication is enough to maintain weight loss? The company is testing dosing options for both the pill and the injectable to offer patients a clear path to weight maintenance.

If approached by a larger pharma, analysts say the company would be well-poised to hold out for a favorable deal because it’s got enough cash to fund its operations into 2028.

Structure Therapeutics

Structure Therapeutics is also attracting attention in the obesity space. The company is developing a diversified pipeline of weight loss pills that leverage different mechanisms. Its most advanced drug, aleniglipron, showed strong results in phase 2, achieving a mean weight loss of 16.3% with the 180 mg dose at 44 weeks, which the company described as the strongest showing for a GLP-1 pill so far. Like Viking’s drug, it also seemed to sidestep the dreaded weight loss plateau, but patients still experienced the typical stomach issues common with this class of medicines.

“The consistent weight loss observed across multiple studies to date reaffirms aleniglipron’s potential to be a best-in-class oral GLP-1, with injectable-like efficacy that could become a backbone oral small molecule therapy for obesity,” said Raymond Stevens, CEO of Structure Therapeutics, in a written release. 

Based on these results, the company anticipates the phase 3 study to kick off in the second half of 2026.

In addition to aleniglipron, the company has a number of earlier-stage drugs in the works developed with other weight loss mechanisms, including two dual amylin and calcitonin receptor agonists. Amylin, a major metabolic hormone, is a popular development target because researchers hope it can induce superior weight loss with fewer stomach-churning side effects than GLP-1 drugs. Large pharmas like AbbVie, Pfizer and AstraZeneca are also exploring amylin drugs.

Like Viking, Structure appears well-positioned financially with $1.4 billion to fund operations into 2028, according to Seeking Alpha.

Kailera Therapeutics

Kailera Therapeutics is well-funded with a strong weight loss pipeline it hopes can compete with current market leaders Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly. The company’s CEO, Ron Renaud, is experienced in navigating acquisitions, having guided sales of three other biotechs. Although, for the moment, the company plans to go it alone with commercializing its products, according to BioPharmaDive.

Kailera’s most advanced obesity drug is a GLP-1/GIP agonist called ribupatide, which it is developing in partnership with Hengrui Pharma. Now in a global phase 3 trial, the drug posted strong results from a China-only late-stage study. In that trial, a 6 mg dose of the drug achieved a mean weight loss of 19.2% without signs of a plateau at 48 weeks.

The biotech also has two earlier-stage obesity pills in the works, including an oral version of ribupatide, which generated 12.1% mean weight loss over 26 weeks in phase 2. Those candidates are in addition to a tri-agonist shot, KAI-4729, which is similar to Lilly’s retatrutide. The Kailera injection delivered 16% mean weight loss in 12 weeks and will now move into phase 2 for both obesity and MASH in China and phase 1 outside of China this year.