Third Harmonic CEO Natalie Hollis was named a 'best CEO' not for a breakthrough, but for responsibly shutting down her struggling company and returning capital to investors, showcasing a mature alternative to slowly bleeding out cash reserves.
Venture capitalist Bruce Booth explains that bankers, lawyers, audit firms, and VCs all have strong financial incentives for a company to go public. This creates systemic pressure that may not align with the company's best long-term interests.
Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk's DTC programs for weight loss drugs give employers an alternative to point employees towards, providing cover to drop expensive insurance coverage and potentially reducing access for patients who rely on it.
VC Bruce Booth warns that investors without deep biotech R&D experience are backing AI-driven drug discovery companies at inflated valuations. He predicts many will 'get their hands burned' due to flawed assumptions about value creation in the sector.
Despite a stable flow of absolute dollars into biotech venture, the sector's relative share of all VC funding has shrunk from ~14% to ~7%. This is due to the denominator effect of massive capital flooding into AI-focused tech companies.
Investor expectations for new obesity drugs require them to beat the current best-in-class therapies. Any clinical data that falls short of this high bar, even for a promising drug, can trigger massive, billion-dollar stock sell-offs in a single day.
Early-year fears of existential threats from policies like Most Favored Nation (MFN) drug pricing have faded. V.C. Bruce Booth notes investors now see these as political wins for the administration that don't fundamentally alter revenue forecasts, reflecting a desensitization to political risk.