Let's Talk Quality | The Newsletter
Welcome to the latest edition of the Rx Group newsletter! We hope you've had a great start to the year, and looking forward to enjoying a successful April! Lot's of exciting things in store for this month! ??
Pharma & Biotech Market Update?
The investment climate in the pharma & biotech world got off to a flying start in 2024!
So far this year, we've seen nine biopharma organisations offer initial public offerings, raising over $1,321m in total proceeds.
February was particularly buoyant, with the highlight being Kyverna Therapeutics ￡319m IPO. In comparison to this time last year, only four companies had gone public, for a total value of $375m USD.
IPO's are a key driver for the confidence and success of the biotech sector, as stock listings give early phase drug developers and start-ups the funding they need to develop their drugs.?
If we take look at the VC market, this year so far, we've seen 178 pharma & biotech companies headquartered in the US raising venture financing for a total deal value of $7,191 million USD.?
Oncology companies continue to raise the most investment, making up 24% of total volume of deals, closely followed by the CNS space, at 21% of all deals, and Immunology in third place with 13% of all deals.?
From a development stage perspective, over half of all deals were for companies at either preclinical (31%) or discovery (22%), suggesting an increase in VC confidence in early phase developers.
If we take a deeper look into some of the largest value deals for early stage drug developers, two of the top three are CGT developers. Clasp Therapeutics , who develops T-cell engagers that enable the immune system to detect tumour-specific oncogenic driver mutations, raised $150m in their Series A round, whilst Capstan Therapeutics raised $175m in Series B funding, to help them advance their lead CAR-T candidate to clinical proof-of-concept in autoimmune disorders. Another positive milestone for the Autoimmune space!
How does this compare to 2023? Well, if we look at Q1 of last year, the volume of deals at the same point of the year, was higher, however the total deal value was considerably lower at $5,271m USD, suggesting investors are clearly being more selective, but are prepared to put more of their money into those they back.
What does this all mean for the job market?
The biotech job market is largely driven by investor confidence, which in turn stems from macro-economic conditions and regulatory success.?Right now, we're still seeing the effects from mass lay-offs in 2023, which have continued to an extent this year.
Many large pharma companies have restructured, refocussing their efforts on specific areas of their portfolio, whilst several smaller biotech's have reduced their workforce due to poor clinical data. These factors, combined with high interest rates and inflation all contributed to a turbulent last 18 months.
This year, there are certainly more jobs available, particularly at the senior end of the market. However, there are large numbers of job seekers. Competition is high. We've been working with some internal TA teams to help them reduce the time to hire, by ensuring they're focussing on streamlining their interview process, having a clear and compelling brand proposition, as well as working with hiring managers to broaden their horizon beyond what they see on a resume.?
We are continuing to see demand across cell & gene therapy, despite a tough investment climate. However we've also been supporting biotech's in the ADC (antibody drug conjugates) space more recently, with a number of start-up companies coming out of stealth mode, who we're helping build out their quality systems and CMC roadmaps in preparation for IND submissions.
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If you're a job seeker and would like to apply to any of our live positions, please click the link below!
Let's Talk Quality | The Podcast
This year, Hemish Ilangaratne has been joined by a number of special guests to discuss topics within quality assurance and quality control, as well as some important issues around patient access, particularly within the world of CAR-T cell therapy.
In March, Laurie Adami spoke about her journey fighting follicular non-Hodgkin Lymphoma and how the discovery of CAR-T cell therapy saved her life after 12 years and six lines of therapy. Laurie speaks passionately about key issues such as access to patients, safety concerns raised by the FDA, and how we can bridge the gap between industry and patients. It's a fascinating conversation and one that should not be missed!
We were also joined by the following guests to discuss the below topics:
Please subscribe free of charge on Apple or Spotify if you haven't already, to make sure you never miss an episode! We have some exciting guests to close off season one of Let's Talk Quality: The Podcast??? and we're on the look-out for more leaders to share their journeys for season two.
That's all for now, but stay tuned for some exciting developments in Q2! We have some exciting projects kicking off, and we're also hiring internally for people to come and join us on our mission of helping the industry bring more therapies to the patients that need them the most.
Wising you a fantastic April!
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