Return of the biotech bull — a BioCentury podcast

Discussing BioCentury’s 2026 Public Markets Preview package

The biotech bull is back, and buysiders believe this market has staying power for the first time in nearly five years. On a special episode of the BioCentury This Week podcast, Director of Biopharma Intelligence Stephen Hansen and colleagues discuss Hansen’s 2026 Public Markets Preview, which finds easing interest rates, waning concern over Washington policy, and strong sector fundamentals converging with a wave of launches and M&A that could keep capital flowing into the sector. 

Hansen said the shift reflects more than a macro reset. With policy risks less of an immediate overhang and financing conditions improving, investors are increasingly focused on which companies can translate late-stage pipelines and recent launches into durable growth. The team highlighted a group of late-stage and newly commercial companies they believe are poised for substantial value creation and maturation into the next wave of mid- and large-cap biotechs.

Continued M&A has produced signs of generalist rotation back into biotech, Hansen said, adding that strong follow-on demand could revive an IPO market that has been largely dormant for the past few years. Yet even as tailwinds build for biotech, investors told Hansen that leadership and policy changes at FDA are a continued source of concern.