January may be upon us but allow me one chance to look back at one of December’s highlights; Evaluate’s event that took place in London. Evaluate Financing Forum: Biotech Strategies for Accessing Capital saw more than 50 professionals from pharma, biotech and financing come together for a morning of networking and knowledge sharing about biotech capital raising.
The day started with a rundown of the state of financing in the biotech market at the end of 2025, provided by Evaluate consultant Ben Folwell. There were a number of key takeaways.
- Momentum is finally building after a slow financing year. Evaluate estimated financing value of around $80bn by the end of 2025. While that is still little more than half the 2021 peak, the final quarter of the year was expected to be the strongest for four years.
- M&A activity is returning at scale. We’re not seeing mega-mergers, but sizeable bolt-on deals have been the order of the day, with over $220bn deployed in M&A activity in 2025 across over 150 deals.
- Pharma’s growth gap is driving reinvestment. The $300bn patent cliff continues to focus the minds of portfolio strategists, with several Big Pharma companies facing significant revenue declines due to loss of exclusivity. Ben’s analysis highlighted the characteristics of recent high-value deals designed to combat the challenge.
The highlight of the day was a panel session hosted by Scrip’s Kevin Grogan. Our panel featured speakers from the financing side of the equation in VC firm Sofinnova, and Discovery Park, a science and technology community in the UK. From the biotech side, we were joined by Sophie Kornowski who led the sale of Boston Pharmaceutical’s efimosfermin to GSK.
For me, the key takeaway from that session was a confirmation of something I’ve heard at several events over the past year, as well as in a recent Evaluate webinar; biotechs need to build their businesses as if they will take their drug to market. They cannot work solely towards making a deal with a pharma company. Kevin has done a full write up of the panel session which I recommend reading here.
Our final session featured Solutions Consultant Vincent Spurr who provided guidance on how biotechs can stand out in a crowded market. He noted an investment rate of 0.7% and provided clear steps to enable biotechs seeking investment to tell compelling stories that capture the attention – and wallets – of investors. The focus on building a compelling narrative and approaching potential partners at the right time and in the right way, chimed exactly with the experiences of our panelists in the earlier session.
We wrapped up with a roundup of key learnings from Vince and In Vivo’s Lucie Ellis-Tait before getting to the real business of the day – lunch!
Don’t want to miss out in future?
If you’d like attend future sessions like this, please get in touch or sign up to our newsletter to learn about upcoming events and webinars. All the slides from the session are available on our content hub. We hope to see you at an event in 2026!
