What are the key takeaways from this BioCentury This Week episode?

Key insights include: **Series A Stabilization:** After four consecutive years of declining activity, 2025 produced 146 Series A rounds totaling $8.1B — up from $7B the prior two years — with seven rounds exceeding $200M, the highest count in five years. Rediva Bio led all raises at $411M, developing oral GLP-1 peptides for cardiometabolic disease. Eli Lilly and Novo Holdings each participated in 11 rounds.; **Syndicate Structure Shift:** Solo investors now represent only 6% of Series A rounds, the lowest proportion in five years, while syndicates of five or more investors rose to 56% from 42% in 2024. Pharma validation deals at the Series A stage are increasingly common, driven by patent cliff pressure pushing large pharma earlier into the innovation pipeline to secure future assets.; **Compounding as Innovation Threat:** Mass-marketed compounded versions of approved drugs like Wegovy undermine the social contract underpinning biopharma investment — companies prove safety and efficacy in exchange for defined market exclusivity. If compounders can legally replicate approved products at scale, the financial rationale for drug development erodes. FDA must enforce the boundary beyond individual high-profile cases like Hims & Hers.

How long is this episode of BioCentury This Week?

This episode is 33 minutes long. SignalCast provides an AI-generated summary so you can get the key insights in about 3 minutes.

BioCentury This Week

Ep. 349 - Start-up Spotlight, Compounding Wegovy & Neuropysch

February 10, 2026

33 min episode · 2 min read

Episode

33 min

Read time

2 min

Topics

Investing, Startups, Fundraising & VC

AI-Generated Summary

Published Mar 15, 2026

Key Takeaways

✓Series A Stabilization: After four consecutive years of declining activity, 2025 produced 146 Series A rounds totaling $8.1B — up from $7B the prior two years — with seven rounds exceeding $200M, the highest count in five years. Rediva Bio led all raises at $411M, developing oral GLP-1 peptides for cardiometabolic disease. Eli Lilly and Novo Holdings each participated in 11 rounds.
✓Syndicate Structure Shift: Solo investors now represent only 6% of Series A rounds, the lowest proportion in five years, while syndicates of five or more investors rose to 56% from 42% in 2024. Pharma validation deals at the Series A stage are increasingly common, driven by patent cliff pressure pushing large pharma earlier into the innovation pipeline to secure future assets.
✓Compounding as Innovation Threat: Mass-marketed compounded versions of approved drugs like Wegovy undermine the social contract underpinning biopharma investment — companies prove safety and efficacy in exchange for defined market exclusivity. If compounders can legally replicate approved products at scale, the financial rationale for drug development erodes. FDA must enforce the boundary beyond individual high-profile cases like Hims & Hers.
✓NIH Budget Defense: Congress appropriated $48.7B for NIH — a $415M increase over 2025 — rejecting the Trump administration's proposed 40% cut to $27.9B. Congress also blocked attempts to restructure overhead reimbursement formulas and declined to create a separate MAHA-aligned entity for ARPA-H. The rare pediatric disease priority review voucher program was reauthorized, enabling roughly 30 pipeline candidates to qualify for vouchers.
✓Psychiatric Drug Revival Framework: Investors and founders are systematically mining decades of failed psychiatric drug trials for candidates that showed efficacy signals but carried unacceptable safety profiles. Modern chemistry, targeted delivery systems, and biomarker-driven patient stratification now offer tools to separate efficacy from toxicity. Companies like DRAG Therapeutics and Seaport exemplify this approach, revisiting AMPA receptor modulators and other previously shelved mechanisms.

What It Covers

BioCentury This Week examines the 2025 biotech Series A landscape, where 146 rounds totaling $8.1B signal stabilization after four years of decline, alongside the systemic threat posed by compounded GLP-1 drugs, congressional rejection of NIH budget cuts, and a framework for reviving failed psychiatric drug candidates using modern engineering tools.

Key Questions Answered

•Series A Stabilization: After four consecutive years of declining activity, 2025 produced 146 Series A rounds totaling $8.1B — up from $7B the prior two years — with seven rounds exceeding $200M, the highest count in five years. Rediva Bio led all raises at $411M, developing oral GLP-1 peptides for cardiometabolic disease. Eli Lilly and Novo Holdings each participated in 11 rounds.
•Syndicate Structure Shift: Solo investors now represent only 6% of Series A rounds, the lowest proportion in five years, while syndicates of five or more investors rose to 56% from 42% in 2024. Pharma validation deals at the Series A stage are increasingly common, driven by patent cliff pressure pushing large pharma earlier into the innovation pipeline to secure future assets.
•Compounding as Innovation Threat: Mass-marketed compounded versions of approved drugs like Wegovy undermine the social contract underpinning biopharma investment — companies prove safety and efficacy in exchange for defined market exclusivity. If compounders can legally replicate approved products at scale, the financial rationale for drug development erodes. FDA must enforce the boundary beyond individual high-profile cases like Hims & Hers.
•NIH Budget Defense: Congress appropriated $48.7B for NIH — a $415M increase over 2025 — rejecting the Trump administration's proposed 40% cut to $27.9B. Congress also blocked attempts to restructure overhead reimbursement formulas and declined to create a separate MAHA-aligned entity for ARPA-H. The rare pediatric disease priority review voucher program was reauthorized, enabling roughly 30 pipeline candidates to qualify for vouchers.
•Psychiatric Drug Revival Framework: Investors and founders are systematically mining decades of failed psychiatric drug trials for candidates that showed efficacy signals but carried unacceptable safety profiles. Modern chemistry, targeted delivery systems, and biomarker-driven patient stratification now offer tools to separate efficacy from toxicity. Companies like DRAG Therapeutics and Seaport exemplify this approach, revisiting AMPA receptor modulators and other previously shelved mechanisms.

Notable Moment

Steve Paul's account of Karuna Therapeutics reframes psychiatric drug development: the $14B BMS acquisition was built not on novel biology but on solving a decades-old safety problem in a known target using combination therapy — demonstrating that engineering around past failures, not discovering new targets, can generate outsized returns.

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Episode Transcript

After four years of declining series a activity in biotech, last year brought a bit of stability in the number of biotechs able to raise startup capital. On today's BioCentury This Week podcast, we assess biotechs series a class of twenty twenty five. Plus, compounded Wegovia is more than a scam. It threatens innovation. Steve Usdin is here to tell you why. And more from Steve in Washington, last week's spending law represents a rebuke, proposed White House biomedical cuts, and serendipity. It drives discovery in psychiatry drug development, but it's engineering that gets it across the line. We have takeaways from Selena Koch's conversation with Steve Paul, formerly of Karuna, currently of Seaport. He joined our sister podcast, the BioCentury show. I'm Jeff Cranmer, host of the BioCentury This Week podcast. And joining me today are my colleagues Simone Fishburne, editor in chief. Danielle Golovin, senior biopharma analyst. Steve Austin, Washington editor. And Selena Gotch, executive editor. Alright. We will turn to Danielle and her brilliant deep dive into series a companies and their technologies. But first, we're excited to introduce a new exclusive opportunity for Bio Century subscribers launching at the Bio Century Bay Helix East West Summit that will be in March, March 9 through the eleventh. Step inside the Bio Century Lounge, a dedicated space designed to connect, recharge, and inspire conversation among industry leaders. Experience unique networking moments, insider insights, and a place to unwind between sessions at our fifth East West Summit. Don't wait. Check out more at biocenturylounge.com. Okay. Danielle, this is, this has become a thing, your your series a analysis. We, don't know if we're in year three or four, but, it's always something I really look forward to reading each year because you remind us of who some of the hottest, newest companies are and who the investors are backing them. What was the main takeaway from your analysis? And I should say your analysis with our colleague, Lindsey Martin, who, did a lot of the data for this deck. Yeah. Exactly. So I'm speaking on behalf of myself and Lindsey who helped me big time this year. And the big good news is that 2025 stopped the downward slide in series a activity. So after four years of going down, down, down, this year, we have 146 series a rounds. And last year, we had one forty nine, so basically stabilizing. And even though the total number of raises were the same, the total amount raised was 8,100,000,000.0. And this is up from 7,000,000,000 the prior two years. And while the number of 100,000,000 plus mega rounds was similar in 2025 to 2024, there were seven mega rounds at over 200,000,000. That's the most in five years. We also saw the largest raise in five years. This is Rediva Bio's 411,000,000 raise. Rediva is developing an oral GLP one peptide as well as oral and sub q amylin agonists for obesity and other cardiometabolic diseases. Danielle, let's talk a …

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Books, tools, and gear mentioned in this episode

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Products

Wegovy
“Mass-marketed compounded versions of approved drugs like Wegovy undermine the social contract underpinning biopharma investment.”
Amazon

company

Hims & Hers
“FDA must enforce the boundary beyond individual high-profile cases like Hims & Hers.”
DRAG Therapeutics
“Companies like DRAG Therapeutics and Seaport exemplify this approach, revisiting AMPA receptor modulators and other previously shelved mechanisms.”
Seaport
“Companies like DRAG Therapeutics and Seaport exemplify this approach, revisiting AMPA receptor modulators and other previously shelved mechanisms.”
Karuna Therapeutics
“Steve Paul's account of Karuna Therapeutics reframes psychiatric drug development: the $14B BMS acquisition was built not on novel biology but on solving a decades-old safety problem.”
Rediva Bio
“Rediva Bio led all raises at $411M, developing oral GLP-1 peptides for cardiometabolic disease.”
Eli Lilly
“Eli Lilly and Novo Holdings each participated in 11 rounds.”
Novo Holdings
“Eli Lilly and Novo Holdings each participated in 11 rounds.”
Bristol Myers Squibb
“the $14B BMS acquisition was built not on novel biology but on solving a decades-old safety problem in a known target using combination therapy”