Biopharma companies raised $2.98 billion through 59 transactions in February 2025, down from $5.91 billion across 93 deals in January. The year is off to a slower start compared to 2023, with the $9.14 billion raised in the first two months, marking a 73% drop from $33.29 billion during the same period last year. However, this year's total is higher than the $7.66 billion raised in the first two months of 2023 and the $7.48 billion in 2022.

HBM Alpha Therapeutics Inc. signed a potential $395 million licensing deal Feb. 26 with an unnamed “business partner” for its endocrine asset, HAT-001, adding another contender to the congenital adrenal hyperplasia space.

Several Asia biotechs this week – including Innocare Pharma Ltd., Akeso Pharmaceuticals Inc., Sanbio Co. Ltd. and Ascletis Pharma Inc. – unveiled the start of new late-stage clinical trials or interim findings from early stage studies.

For the pharmaceutical industry caught in the crosshairs of a potential trade war, the consequences of U.S. tariffs on China or Europe remain largely speculative, although both would be detrimental, according to a Korea Biotechnology Industry Organization (KoreaBIO) issue briefing Feb. 7.

Biopharma companies secured $5.91 billion across 93 transactions in January 2025, a continuing upward swing from $4.69 billion in December and $3.6 billion in November 2024.

“This current administration is like nothing that we've seen before,” said a managing partner of a global venture capital firm who spoke to BioWorld on the condition of anonymity. “President Trump’s first term was bad,” he said, “but nobody knows what’s coming.” “This is truly nationalism at its worst, because he won on the campaign [largely] to protect American jobs, claiming that Americans have been unfairly treated.” And it's not just China, he said, but India and other countries will also likely be affected.

It’s one thing for the scientific community to propose a fundamental change to the way obesity is defined and diagnosed. But it’s another for that proposal to be adopted by regulators, especially when the current definition that relies primarily on the body mass index is entrenched in guidance and obesity drug development and approval.

As more Asia biotechs turn to regenerative medicine to address disorders without a cure, Medipost Inc. is continuing global expansion with Cartistem, its allogeneic human umbilical cord blood-derived mesenchymal stem cell product that gained clearance in South Korea in 2012 to treat knee osteoarthritis.

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