What’s funding like in the biotechnology market right now?

All funding deals in the biotechnology market over the last 24 months

Below is the table listing all the deals. You can find our methodology at the end of this page.

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Is biotech funding actually healthier today than it was a year ago?

Biotechnology funding looks genuinely healthier today, although the extra strength is landing unevenly across the market.

We counted 425 qualifying financings from 18 September 2025 to 17 September 2026, up from 383 in the previous 12 months. Unique funded companies rose from 374 to 412, while the median round increased from $34 million to $39 million. Total disclosed or floor capital reached at least $26.44 billion, versus at least $21.21 billion before.

The typical month improved too. Median monthly deal count rose from 29.5 to 34, and median monthly capital moved from about $1.68 billion to $2.06 billion. The busiest month by deal count was actually smaller than before, which makes the improvement look more consistent rather than dependent on one unusually frantic stretch.

The weakness sits in concentration. Huge financings take a larger share of total capital now, and therapeutics discovery platforms dominate the mix much more heavily. So the healthier part of biotechnology today is the combination of more funded companies, more first financings and larger typical rounds. The less healthy part is how much of the money is clustering around a narrower group of categories and very large rounds.

Metric	Current 12M	Previous 12M	Change
Deals	425	383	+11.0%
Unique funded companies	412	374	+10.2%
Total disclosed/floor capital	≥$26.44B	≥$21.21B	+24.7%
Median round	$39.0M	$34.0M	+14.7%
Average disclosed round	$63.1M	$56.0M	+12.8%
First financings	115	90	+27.8%
First-financing share	27.1%	23.5%	+3.6 pp
Early-stage deal share	50.8%	49.9%	+1.0 pp
Later-stage capital share	62.5%	56.9%	+5.5 pp
Median monthly capital	$2.06B	$1.68B	about +23%

Would biotech funding still look stronger without the giant rounds?

Biotechnology funding still comes out ahead once we strip away the giant rounds, so the current acceleration goes deeper than one or two headline deals.

The obvious distortion is Isomorphic Labs' $2.1 billion Series B. Removing that entire financing still leaves roughly $24.34 billion of current-period capital, about 15% above the previous period's full total. Removing the top three deals from each period also leaves the recent 12 months ahead by roughly 18%.

The stricter cuts tell the same story with smaller margins. Capital from rounds below $50 million increased from $4.30 billion to $4.80 billion. If we remove every $100 million-plus financing, current capital is still about $11.38 billion versus $10.58 billion previously.

That is why the headline increase deserves to be taken seriously. Giant rounds make the rebound look stronger than it really is, but the rest of the market also expanded.

Outlier test	Current 12M	Previous 12M	Change
All disclosed/floor capital	≥$26.44B	≥$21.21B	+24.7%
Excluding each period's top 3 rounds	about $23.30B	about $19.80B	about +18%
Excluding each period's top 5 rounds	about $22.54B	about $19.06B	about +18%
Capital excluding >$50M rounds	$4.80B	$4.30B	+11.8%
Capital excluding >$100M rounds	about $11.38B	$10.58B	about +7.5%
Deal count	425	383	+11.0%

Are more biotech companies actually getting funded now?

More biotechnology companies are getting funded now, and the increase is broad enough to show up in both company count and month-to-month activity.

We found 412 unique funded companies in the recent period, compared with 374 a year earlier. Deal count rose at almost the same pace. That tells us the extra activity did not come from the same small set of businesses repeatedly tapping the market.

The monthly pattern supports that reading. A typical rolling month had 34 deals, versus 29.5 before, even though the single busiest month dropped from 56 deals to 49. These days, biotechnology financing looks more consistently busy rather than more dependent on a short burst of activity.

Geography is the main exception. Funding reached companies in 22 countries, down from 28. Biotechnology is reaching more companies overall, but those companies are increasingly clustered in a smaller number of hubs.

Are investors funding new biotech startups or mostly doubling down on existing winners?

New biotech startups are getting funded more often, while existing winners are taking most of the extra dollars.

First financings rose from 90 to 115, a 28% jump, and their share of all deals increased by 3.6 percentage points. The median first financing also increased from $15 million to $17.25 million. New-company formation therefore looks better today than it did one year earlier.

The money tells a different story. Capital going into first financings barely moved, from $4.88 billion to $5.00 billion. Follow-on capital jumped from $16.32 billion to $21.44 billion. Investors are creating more new funded companies while reserving the really large checks for businesses that have already cleared at least one financing hurdle.

Fresh deals around the end of the period show how selective that can be. Solstice Oncology launched with a $225 million Series A around an already clinical-stage asset, while TwoStep Therapeutics raised $62.5 million alongside FDA IND clearance for its lead program. A first institutional round can still be very large, but lately those oversized debuts tend to come with substantial scientific or clinical proof already attached.

Metric	Current 12M	Previous 12M	Change
First financings	115	90	+27.8%
First-financing share	27.1%	23.5%	+3.6 pp
First-financing capital	$5.00B	$4.88B	+2.6%
First-financing capital share	18.9%	23.0%	-4.1 pp
Median first financing	$17.25M	$15.0M	+15.0%
Follow-on financings	310	291	+6.5%
Follow-on capital	$21.44B	$16.32B	+31.3%
Follow-on capital share	81.1%	77.0%	+4.1 pp
Median follow-on	$45M	$40M	+12.5%

Is biotech funding getting too concentrated at the top?

Biotechnology funding is much more concentrated at the top today, even though more companies are getting financed underneath that top layer.

The largest current deal accounts for 7.9% of all capital, versus 2.8% for the previous period's largest deal. The top three now represent 11.9% of capital, up from 6.7%, and the top ten represent 20.6%, up from 16.8%.

Rounds above $100 million are doing more of the heavy lifting too. They account for at least 57% of current capital, compared with about half previously. Underlying market growth survives that concentration, but the benefits are distributed very differently.

Why are therapeutics discovery platforms swallowing so much biotech capital?

Therapeutics discovery platforms are taking a much bigger share of biotech funding right now because they gained deals, round size and total capital at the same time.

The category went from 250 to 314 deals. Its share of all biotechnology financings rose from 65% to almost 74%, while its share of capital climbed from about 78% to nearly 88%. The median round increased from $41 million to $50 million.

The largest deal cannot explain the category shift on its own. Removing Isomorphic Labs still leaves roughly $21.15 billion of current therapeutics-platform capital, around 28% above the previous period. Kailera Therapeutics raised $600 million, NewLimit $435 million, Tubulis $361 million and several other therapeutic companies raised hundreds of millions each. The category gain runs well beyond the single largest transaction.

Recent company announcements show why investors are willing to write those checks. NewLimit tied its $435 million round to bringing its first aging-reprogramming medicine into human trials. Tubulis raised its Series C to push its lead ADC deeper into clinical development. These are platforms turning into drug-development companies, which gives investors something more tangible to underwrite than platform promise alone.

Category	Current deals	Previous deals	Current capital	Previous capital
Therapeutics Discovery Platforms	314	250	$23.25B	$16.48B
Cell Therapy Developers	39	36	$1.44B	$1.54B
Diagnostic Technology Firms	30	41	$656M	$1.02B
Gene Editing Companies	14	25	$644M	$1.38B
Bioprocessing Tool Providers	22	21	$259M	$310M
Synthetic Biology Platforms	6	10	$187M	$478M

Is gene editing funding drying up?

Gene editing funding has clearly cooled over the last 12 months, with fewer deals, less capital and much smaller typical rounds.

Deal count fell from 25 to 14, while capital dropped from roughly $1.38 billion to $644 million. The median round fell from $45 million to $22.5 million. All three measures moved in the same direction, so this looks like a real retrenchment rather than a single missing megaround.

There are still meaningful financings. SonoThera closed a $125 million Series B to advance ultrasound-mediated nonviral genetic medicines, and Latus Bio announced a $97 million Series A financing. Those deals show that genetic medicine can still attract serious capital when there is a specific delivery or development story.

Across the category, funding attention is still much weaker than it was a year earlier. Investors currently appear more willing to fund selected gene-therapy or genetic-medicine platforms than to lift the whole category together.

Is cell therapy funding weakening, or are checks just smaller now?

Cell therapy is still getting deals done, but the typical biotech check in the category is much smaller now.

We counted 39 cell-therapy financings versus 36 previously, while aggregate capital slipped from about $1.54 billion to $1.44 billion. The bigger change is the median round, which fell from $28.4 million to $14.8 million.

Large financings have not disappeared. Orca Bio announced $250 million in aggregate new equity financing as it prepared for potential commercialization, and BrainChild Bio closed a $116 million Series A around a pivotal Phase 2 CAR T program. Those companies had concrete late-stage or clinical execution needs that can still pull in nine-figure capital.

Today, cell therapy still has deal flow, just with much smaller typical checks.

Is biotech money moving to later-stage companies?

More biotech dollars are going to later-stage companies now, even though early-stage deal creation is still holding up.

Seed and Series A together make up 50.8% of current deals, slightly higher than before. Later-stage deal share actually fell. Capital moved the other way: later-stage companies absorbed 62.5% of current funding, up from 56.9%.

Series B is where that split becomes obvious. Its deal share rose only 1.2 percentage points, yet its capital share jumped almost ten points to 36.7%. Series B is where the really large scaling checks are landing once companies have enough validation.

Series D+ tells a different version of the same story. There were fewer D+ financings, but the median D+ round increased from $89 million to $109 million. Investors are writing bigger checks to a smaller group of companies that have already moved well beyond company formation.

Stage	Current deal share	Previous deal share	Current capital share	Previous capital share
Seed	20.0%	19.6%	3.1%	3.6%
Series A	30.8%	30.3%	29.3%	31.3%
Series B	22.1%	20.9%	36.7%	27.2%
Series C	6.6%	8.1%	11.8%	12.9%
Series D+	5.4%	6.5%	11.8%	15.0%
Growth Equity	0.9%	1.3%	2.2%	1.8%
Unknown	14.1%	13.3%	5.2%	8.2%

Are biotech rounds getting bigger, or is the middle disappearing?

Biotech rounds are getting bigger at the top and more numerous at the very small end, while the middle has lost share.

Sub-$5 million rounds increased from 38 to 53, taking 12.5% of deals versus 9.9% previously. At the other end, $100 million-plus rounds increased from 66 to 81 and now represent 19.1% of deals.

The $5 million to $50 million middle lost about 5.8 percentage points of deal share. That is why the higher $39 million market median needs a little context: typical financing size did rise, but the distribution also became more split between small experimental checks and very large scaling rounds.

For founders, the practical picture today is less uniform than the median suggests. There is active capital for small early bets and plenty of money for companies that can justify $100 million-plus rounds, while the conventional middle has become relatively less prominent.

Are biotech companies raising again faster these days?

We do not see reliable evidence that biotechnology companies are raising again faster these days.

Among follow-on financings where we could identify a previous biotechnology round, the median interval increased from about 9.2 months to 14.9 months. Only 35.8% of the usable current follow-ons came within 12 months of the previous known round, versus 67.7% before.

The matched round-size sample also looks more restrained. Median step-up fell from 1.69x to 1.23x, while the share of follow-ons more than doubling the previous round dropped from about 42% to 29%.

We would keep this conclusion narrow. Previous-round dates are available for only about 26% of current follow-ons and 11% of previous follow-ons, so the samples are both incomplete and uneven. The data can reject the easy claim that fundraising velocity obviously accelerated; it cannot prove that the whole market now takes longer to refinance.

Do biotech startups need more proof to raise now?

Biotech startups do not seem to need to be older to raise today, but the biggest checks are increasingly attached to companies that can show concrete clinical or development progress.

Median company age in the usable sample is almost unchanged at about 4.9 years versus 5.0 years. First-financing companies are slightly younger, and the observable Series A cohort reached that stage at a median age of roughly 2.7 years versus 4.4 years previously, although founding-date coverage is weaker in the recent period.

Recent financings make the proof point much clearer than company age does. Solstice Oncology launched with $225 million around a clinical-stage oncology asset. TwoStep paired its $62.5 million Series A with FDA IND clearance. BrainChild Bio closed $116 million as it initiated a pivotal Phase 2 trial. These are unusually fresh examples of investors funding execution around assets that have already crossed important development gates.

For the biggest rounds, investors seem to care more about what has already been de-risked than about company age. That fits the rise in follow-on capital and the much larger role of Series B financing.

Are pharma strategic investors taking a bigger role in biotech funding?

Pharma strategic investors are showing up in bigger biotech rounds now, even though their overall participation rate has barely changed.

Strategic-backed deals represented 32.9% of current financings versus 32.1% previously. The median strategic-backed round, however, jumped from $47 million to $63.5 million. Unique named strategics increased from 94 to 103, and total strategic participations rose from 180 to 201.

The mix tilted toward therapeutics as well. Therapeutics discovery platforms accounted for almost 79% of current strategic-backed deals, up from about 67%. Pfizer Ventures appeared in 15 strategic participations versus four previously, while Lilly and Sanofi Ventures also became more visible in our counts.

We see the same thing in individual deals. TwoStep's Series A included M Ventures and Pfizer Ventures as co-leads, SonoThera's round included several corporate venture arms, and Beeline Medicines' later Series A extension included Bristol Myers Squibb. Corporate money is currently concentrating around companies with clearer therapeutic development paths and larger capital needs.

Is China driving the biggest geographic shift in biotech funding right now?

China is currently the clearest geographic growth story in biotechnology funding, and the jump comes from many more funded companies rather than a few oversized checks.

Chinese deal count rose from 19 to 53, almost tripling. Capital followed a similar path, increasing from roughly $770 million to $2.18 billion. The median round actually fell from about $47.5 million to $40 million, which tells us the expansion came through breadth.

The licensing market points in the same direction. Nature's Biopharma Dealmakers reported that disclosed licensing value for China-origin pharmaceutical assets rose from roughly $5 billion in 2020 to more than $50 billion in 2024. Its later review of 2025 dealmaking highlighted China as one of the year's major biopharma themes, alongside multispecific antibodies and AI drug discovery.

We would treat those licensing numbers as context rather than proof of what caused the venture increase. Still, global pharma has lately been validating Chinese-developed assets much more aggressively, and the fundraising data are moving in the same direction.

Is Europe actually keeping up with the biotech funding recovery?

Europe is lagging the broader biotech funding recovery once we look past a few huge rounds.

European deals fell from 126 to 117, cutting the region's deal share by more than five percentage points. Aggregate capital still increased from about $5.79 billion to $6.27 billion, but the median round fell from $24.8 million to $12.7 million.

The United Kingdom captures the contradiction. UK deal count rose, yet its median round dropped from $33.8 million to $15.5 million. The UK megadeal lifts aggregate capital dramatically without telling us much about the typical UK round.

Germany had a similar, smaller distortion through Tubulis' $361 million financing. Europe still produces companies capable of attracting world-class rounds, but the average European founder is operating in a weaker financing environment than the regional total suggests.

Are biotech investors becoming more selective or just more spread out?

More lead investors showed up in biotech deals, while fewer of the same names kept repeating.

We counted 333 unique disclosed lead investors versus 314 previously. Total disclosed lead participations increased only slightly, from 456 to 465, while the number of lead investors appearing more than once fell from 71 to 60.

Some specialist firms became much more visible. RA Capital Management appeared 15 times versus four previously, Forbion 11 versus seven, ARCH Venture Partners ten versus six, and OrbiMed eight versus five. Qiming Venture Partners' six current appearances also fit the stronger China activity.

We should not turn one year's absence or decline into a claim that a fund has “left biotech.” Lead-investor disclosure is incomplete, and current disclosure is somewhat weaker than in the previous period. What we can say is that the observed lead pool did not narrow around a smaller club of repeat names.

Are biotech companies raising to build science or to scale it now?

Biotech companies raising the biggest rounds today are often using the money to move from platform promise into clinical development, manufacturing or commercialization.

We cannot calculate a clean market-wide use-of-funds share because the financing records do not contain a consistent structured field for that purpose. The strongest current rounds still give us useful examples.

NewLimit said its $435 million financing would help bring its first aging-reprogramming medicine into human trials. Crossbow Therapeutics raised $77 million to advance its TCR-mimetic antibody programs, with clinical development already underway. Predicta Biosciences said its $23.4 million financing would support team expansion, CLIA laboratory infrastructure and commercialization of its first diagnostic test. Scarlet Therapeutics directed its seed capital toward in-vivo proof of concept, manufacturing development and regulatory engagement.

Orca Bio is even further along the curve: its financing was tied to commercial readiness and expanded manufacturing capacity around its cell-therapy program. Those deals show where some of the most visible capital is going now: toward turning validated programs into trials, manufacturing systems and commercial products.

What really changed in biotech funding over the last 12 months?

The biggest change in biotech funding is that the market became genuinely stronger underneath the headline.

More companies raised money, first financings increased, the typical round got larger and the improvement survived every useful megaround test we ran. That is the clearest reason we see the current market as healthier than the preceding 12 months.

The second change is concentration. The recent market gives a much bigger share of capital to $100 million-plus rounds and therapeutic discovery companies. The recovery is real, but its largest rewards are clustering around a narrower group of businesses.

New-company formation improved faster than overall deal activity, yet most incremental capital went to follow-ons. Biotechnology is currently doing two things at once: bringing more startups into the funded ecosystem and scaling selected existing companies much more aggressively.

Therapeutics discovery platforms have the strongest genuine momentum because they gained deals, capital and median round size together. Gene editing moved the other way across all three measures, while cell therapy kept its deal flow but saw the typical financing shrink sharply.

The money also shifted toward later development without choking off early-stage company creation. Series B became the main scaling stage, strategic-backed rounds got larger, and several recent large financings arrived alongside clinical progress, regulatory clearance or commercialization work.

The most misleading headline would be “biotech funding jumped 25%, so everything is booming again.” The market is healthier today, but it is also more concentrated by deal size, category and geography. Anyone looking only at total dollars would miss half of the story.