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

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.