A third of small-to-mid-cap biotech firms are becoming profitable, with cash reserves projected to soar from $15B in 2025 to over $130B by 2030. This financial strength, combined with large-cap patent expirations, positions them not just as acquisition targets but as potential players in the M&A landscape themselves.
While AI holds long-term promise for molecule discovery, its most significant near-term impact in biotech is operational. The key benefits today are faster clinical trial recruitment and more efficient regulatory submissions. The revolutionary science of AI-driven drug design is still in its earliest stages.
Small and mid-cap biotech companies are primarily "capital consumers," making them highly sensitive to interest rates. As the Fed moves toward rate cuts, cheaper capital is expected to unlock significant spending on R&D pipelines and M&A activity, historically making biotech a top-performing sector after the first cut.