BioCentury This Week

As targeted protein degradation gains momentum, oral selective estrogen receptor degraders are emerging as one of its most advanced proving grounds. On the latest BioCentury This Week podcast, BioCentury’s Lauren Martz assesses how the oral SERD landscape is evolving. Washington Editor Steve Usdin then discusses setbacks at FDA for an orphan therapy from Disc Medicine and a vaccine from Moderna, a...

2025 marked the end of a four-year slide in series A financings for biotechs, with 144 biotechs raising an aggregate of $8 billion, up $1 billion from the prior two years. On the latest BioCentury This Week podcast, BioCentury’s Danielle Golovin assesses which companies VCs backed last year and what their investments say about where technology is headed. Washington Editor Steve Usdin offers a pers...

RNAi and exon-skipping therapies headline the list of regulatory and pivotal data catalysts in 2026, while new lipid-lowering mechanisms, modalities, and precision medicines define cardiovascular disease catalysts this year. On the latest BioCentury This Week podcast, BioCentury’s analysts discuss the most important milestones of the year in new modalities, CV and renal diseases. The analysts also...

New rules in China will accelerate the country’s cell and gene therapy sector by reshaping how investigator-initiated trials are conducted and commercialized. On the latest BioCentury This Week podcast, BioCentury’s analysts discuss the new framework and why it will create a powerful incentive for deploying new gene and cell therapies. Executive Editor Selina Koch discusses which milestones she is...

The biotech bull is back, and buysiders believe this market has staying power for the first time in nearly five years. On a special episode of the BioCentury This Week podcast, Director of Biopharma Intelligence Stephen Hansen and colleagues discuss Hansen’s 2026 Public Markets Preview , which found interest rates, policy in Washington and fundamentals finally aligning and a wave of launches and M...

Next-generation induced proximity technologies are coming of age after a decade of industry focus on PROTACs. On the latest BioCentury This Week podcast, BioCentury’s analysts discuss Senior Biopharma Analyst Danielle Golovin’s four-part analysis of how next-generation targeting chimeras (TACs) are evolving. The analysts assess the $2.2 billion takeout of Rapt Therapeutics by GSK, which gave the p...

The J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference kicked off this week with sunny skies over San Francisco and more financial momentum than the biotech industry has seen in years. On a special “on the road” edition of the BioCentury This Week podcast, recorded on the sidelines of the annual JPM conference, special guests joined BioCentury’s analysts to discuss the biotech ecosystems in Asia. The wide-ranging...

Riding the tailwind of a strong 2H25, the days leading up to biotech’s annual kickoff meeting in San Francisco delivered billions in capital raised and more than two dozen deals announced. On the latest BioCentury This Week podcast, BioCentury’s analysts discuss two of the largest deals announced at the start of the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, a partnership for a bispecific between AbbVie a...

The New Year begins with biotech running along parallel storylines. There’s cause for optimism as the industry’s financing gears have begun to churn again and innovation remains as strong as it has ever been, while there's cause for concern as the world’s most stable, progressive, science-based regulatory system has become unpredictable amid new leadership at HHS, FDA, and NIH. On the first e...

This past year was an inflection point for biotech: The markets woke up, M&A and China had strong showings, drug development offered key trends, and new leadership at FDA shuffled the regulatory deck. On the latest BioCentury This Week podcast, BioCentury’s analysts make their picks for the biggest biopharma readouts, deals and regulatory and policy moves of 2025 and what they are forecasting...

Obesity readouts continue to be hot for biotech with new top-line data from both injectable and oral therapies pushing the boundaries on efficacy. On the latest BioCentury This Week podcast, BioCentury’s analysts break down last week’s readouts from Eli Lilly, Structure  and Wave Life Sciences, and discuss a deal in the space by Pfizer. Lilly reported the latest for its triple agonist contender re...

Fueled by cancer, obesity and cardiovascular deals, $1 billion-plus takeouts in biotech are at their highest level in a decade with three weeks to go in the year. On the latest BioCentury This Week, BioCentury’s analysts discuss the rise in large M&A deals and what the trends among the 37 acquisitions say about biopharma dealmaking. The analysts assess first-in-human in vivo CAR T data at the...

Novo Nordisk’s highly anticipated data for semaglutide in Alzheimer’s dashed hopes that the GLP-1 therapy could become a game changer in the disease. On the latest BioCentury This Week podcast, Executive Editor Selina Koch discusses the Phase III readout including what it says about the mechanism’s use in the neurodegenerative disease, Novo’s decision to skip Phase II and enroll a large patient gr...

A baffling decision by FDA to issue a complete response letter for a pediatric medicine the medical community stood behind is just the latest example raising concerns that the agency is shifting the regulatory goalposts amid a lack of transparency. On the latest BioCentury This Week podcast, Washington Editor Steve Usdin explains how the absence of advisory committee meetings at FDA is in part to...

There is cautious optimism around continued M&A momentum and the public equities markets as biotech heads into the New Year. On a special edition of the BioCentury This Week podcast recorded in London during London Life Sciences Week, BioCentury’s Simone Fishburn and Stephen Hansen were joined by a trio of guests to discuss their key takeaways from the week and expectations for next year, incl...

Voyager CEO and former head of R&D at Biogen Al Sandrock is more optimistic than ever about the prospect of bringing clinically meaningful solutions to patients with Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders. The threads of progress are finally coming together, he said in a special episode of the BioCentury This Week podcast. From the first disease-modifying therapies for Alzhe...

Richard Pazdur took the top job at FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research after receiving vows that he would be leading CDER free from political interference. On the latest BioCentury This Week podcast, BioCentury's analysts discuss the issues that could prove to be flashpoints between Pazdur and the heads of FDA and HHS, including personnel, RSV mAbs, puberty blockers and SSRIs. BioCe...

Today’s South Korean biotechs have a risk-on mentality, a willingness to partner, and strategies focused on globalization. On a special edition of the BioCentury This Week podcast recorded at Venture Café Cambridge, BioCentury is joined by a quartet of investors and executives with deep knowledge of Korea’s life sciences ecosystem to discuss Korea biotech’s push to globalize and the opportunities...

With ObesityWeek yielding eye-catching amylin data and a bidding war that ran to $10 billion for Metsera, weight loss companies were center stage in biotech last week. On the latest edition of the BioCentury This Week podcast, BioCentury’s analysts explained why Pfizer's victory for the start-up over European rival Novo Nordisk doesn’t necessarily mean a broader U.S. policy shift against fore...

Novo Nordisk’s unsolicited $8.5 billion bid for Metsera has thrown a wrench into Pfizer’s plans to return to the obesity race via its acquisition of the New York-based start-up. On the latest BioCentury This Week podcast, BioCentury’s analysts discuss the details of the competing bids and what’s at stake for the pair of suitors. The analysts also assess the reasons behind the abrupt departure of C...

China is setting a new bar for the speed of clinical development and redefining the time it takes an asset to get to the clinic. On a special edition of the BioCentury This Week podcast recorded on stage at the 12th BioCentury BayHelix China Healthcare Summit in Shanghai, BioCentury's Simone Fishburn argued that China’s emerging new standard for swift entry to the clinic could upend the bottl...

Novartis’ biggest deal in more than a decade gives the Swiss pharma three programs for muscular dystrophies that are close to the finish line. On the latest BioCentury This Week podcast, BioCentury’s analysts discuss the $12 billion deal for Avidity in the context of Novartis’ recent acquisitions and the antibody-oligonucleotide conjugate platform it is gaining. The team dives into RNA versus DNA...

Next-generation platforms and technologies are getting closer to cracking one of biopharma’s biggest problems: delivering medicines, and mAbs in particular, to the brain. On the latest BioCentury This Week podcast, BioCentury’s Selina Koch details the latest innovations in blood-brain-barrier shuttles and how the technologies could transform the treatment of neurological diseases. BioCentury’s Lau...

It’s been a tough year for cell and gene therapy — patient deaths, high-profile companies pulling out of the space, and sour investment sentiment. But the field has had some promising readouts in the clinic recently, and it continues to mature, showing steady progress despite challenging market conditions. On the latest BioCentury This Week podcast, Evotec’s Bernd Mühlenweg joins BioCentury’s anal...

Biotech’s fourth quarter began with a familiar feeling, with indicators pointing toward an improving public market even as political and regulatory uncertainty has buysiders reluctant to say industry has returned to sustainable growth. On the latest BioCentury This Week podcast, BioCentury’s analysts assess the state of biotech’s public markets. The analysts discuss the Senate’s move to limit acce...