Episode 179 - April 10, 2026
Episode
59 min
Read time
2 min
Topics
Relationships, Investing, Leadership
AI-Generated Summary
Key Takeaways
- ✓Biotech Market Outperformance: The XBI ETF hit a 52-week high near 132, delivering an 84% return over the past year versus 30% for the S&P 500 and 39% for the Nasdaq. Investors who entered biotech at the Liberation Day low of 71 more than doubled their money, making the sector the strongest-performing major equity category over that period.
- ✓M&A Data Room Risk: The Terns-Merck SEC filing reveals that acquirers accessing confidential data rooms can materially reprice deals downward. Party C dropped its $61 bid entirely after seeing updated Cardinal study data showing degraded MMR rates; Merck lowered its offer from $61 to $50 before settling at $53. Investors should monitor SEC filings post-announcement for deal process disclosures.
- ✓Platform vs. Asset Acquisitions: Gilead's $3.15B Tubulus deal, following a $20M partnership signed in December 2024, illustrates a strategy of using small licensing deals as due diligence before full platform acquisitions. This approach gave Gilead confidence in Tubulus's differentiated ADC methodology before committing capital, offering a replicable framework for evaluating biotech platform investments.
- ✓Mid-Cap Buyers Expanding M&A Competition: Neurocrine, Servier, and BioMarin demonstrate that mid-sized pharma companies are now active acquirers alongside large caps, increasing competitive bidding. Neurocrine's Soleno acquisition at roughly $3B adds Vykat XR, annualizing above $400M with blockbuster potential, while reducing dependence on its higher-risk late-stage neurology pipeline and maintaining cash flows within the XBI.
- ✓GLP-1 Genetic Response Variability: A Nature paper using 23andMe data from approximately 25,600 subjects identified a missense variant in the GLP-1 receptor associated with nearly one additional kilogram of weight loss per gene copy and altered side effect profiles. Comparing efficacy across GLP-1 trials without accounting for patient genetic composition produces misleading conclusions about drug performance.
What It Covers
Biotech Hangout Episode 179 covers biotech market performance with XBI up 84% year-over-year, Merck's $6.7B Terns acquisition backstory, Gilead's $3.15B Tubulus ADC platform deal, Neurocrine's $3B Soleno purchase, FDA regulatory developments, and new obesity drug approvals from Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly.
Key Questions Answered
- •Biotech Market Outperformance: The XBI ETF hit a 52-week high near 132, delivering an 84% return over the past year versus 30% for the S&P 500 and 39% for the Nasdaq. Investors who entered biotech at the Liberation Day low of 71 more than doubled their money, making the sector the strongest-performing major equity category over that period.
- •M&A Data Room Risk: The Terns-Merck SEC filing reveals that acquirers accessing confidential data rooms can materially reprice deals downward. Party C dropped its $61 bid entirely after seeing updated Cardinal study data showing degraded MMR rates; Merck lowered its offer from $61 to $50 before settling at $53. Investors should monitor SEC filings post-announcement for deal process disclosures.
- •Platform vs. Asset Acquisitions: Gilead's $3.15B Tubulus deal, following a $20M partnership signed in December 2024, illustrates a strategy of using small licensing deals as due diligence before full platform acquisitions. This approach gave Gilead confidence in Tubulus's differentiated ADC methodology before committing capital, offering a replicable framework for evaluating biotech platform investments.
- •Mid-Cap Buyers Expanding M&A Competition: Neurocrine, Servier, and BioMarin demonstrate that mid-sized pharma companies are now active acquirers alongside large caps, increasing competitive bidding. Neurocrine's Soleno acquisition at roughly $3B adds Vykat XR, annualizing above $400M with blockbuster potential, while reducing dependence on its higher-risk late-stage neurology pipeline and maintaining cash flows within the XBI.
- •GLP-1 Genetic Response Variability: A Nature paper using 23andMe data from approximately 25,600 subjects identified a missense variant in the GLP-1 receptor associated with nearly one additional kilogram of weight loss per gene copy and altered side effect profiles. Comparing efficacy across GLP-1 trials without accounting for patient genetic composition produces misleading conclusions about drug performance.
Notable Moment
The Terns-Merck SEC filing disclosed that a competing bidder initially offered $61 per share plus a $9 CVR, outbidding Merck, but withdrew entirely after reviewing confidential trial data showing degraded efficacy. Without the acquisition, that data release could have been catastrophic for Terns shareholders.
Episode Transcript
You're listening to Bio Tech Hangout, a live and unedited weekly discussion of all the latest news in our industry with a group of biotech leaders and experts. I'm Greg Sivanovich, and my cohost today are, fellow CellSight biotech colleagues, Josh Shimmer and Yaron Werber. We've got Sam Fazeli and also a special guest today, Oliver Barnes, who's joining us for a first time. So welcome, Oliver. For more information about our hosts and guest speakers or to listen to the most recent episode, please go to biotechhangout.com. So So happy Friday, everyone. The sun is out, but there's a slight chill in the air still, where I am in New York City, but it's great to be back again as a host on the biotech hangout. We had a really fun session last week. I hope many of you joined, and I wanna thank my cohost from last week, Mike Key and Eric Schmidt, for their always insightful and amazing contributions. Today, I'd like to start with some high level comments on where we are, in the biotech market. So from a public market perspective for the week starting Monday and through at least yesterday's close, using the XPI, which is an ETF as a proxy, biotech is up 2%. Now this compares to the S and P five hundred and Nasdaq both being up 4% for the week, so that is relative underperformance. But with that said, bigger picture when looking at the XPI, it's now up 8% year to date, and that's strong outperformance versus the S and P 500, which is essentially flat for the year and up only, 0.3%. And that's even stronger outperformance for the XPI when comparing versus the Nasdaq, which is down 2% year to date. In addition, importantly, with the XBI closing yesterday near the 132 level, this encouragingly marks, a new fifty two week high. From my perspective, this reflects just an incredible comeback for biotech, especially if we were to look back at this time last year when the markets were just reeling from the aftershocks of so called Liberation Day with the current US administration's announcement of new tariff policy. For context, a year ago today, the XPI stood at, 71, and change. That's the exact fifty two week low level. And for numbers geeks and perhaps stock nerds out there like me, that is a very nifty and healthy 84% positive return. That compares with a a plus 30% return for the S and P five hundred and a plus 39% return for the Nasdaq. And while those numbers certainly reflect truly great returns over the past year, a public equity investor would have more than doubled her or his money investing a year ago had they invested in biotech using, again, the XBI as a proxy. So just an opening statement on the biotech market that I thought was, very worth sharing with you all today. And then, in terms of the financing environment, I'd like …
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“The XBI ETF hit a 52-week high near 132, delivering an 84% return over the past year versus 30% for the S&P 500 and 39% for the Nasdaq.”
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“A Nature paper using 23andMe data from approximately 25,600 subjects identified a missense variant in the GLP-1 receptor associated with nearly one additional kilogram of weight loss per gene copy.”
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