What true cancel culture and who practices it?

It’s just one example of the businesses and jobs that have been lost in the industry’s dramatic decline. During recent months, local companies including Kojin Therapeutics, Abata Therapeutics, and iTeos Therapeutics have shut down, and a slew of others have trimmed their ambitions (and headcount), threatening progress on everything from cancer to autoimmune disorders.

In August, pharmaceutical companies laid off 19,000 people, more than any other sector — up a stunning 142 percent from August 2024, according to the staffing firm Challenger, Gray, and Christmas.

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So what exactly are we losing? Small companies have been working on a range of “promising therapies — whether it be for Alzheimer’s, oncology, cystic fibrosis,” says Brad Zakes, senior vice president of emerging companies and economic growth at the industry group BIO. Losing those efforts will make the drug pipeline thinner, and patients may see fewer breakthrough medicines in coming years. “That’s the real tragedy,” Zakes notes.

Experts say this “biotech winter” is particularly acute because of the long list of uncertainties facing the industry.

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Dunsire is also deeply concerned about the ability of universities to nurture new ideas, given their financial strain. She cites the massive dislocation going on at Harvard, as well as at other schools. These are “challenges to foreign graduates coming into our PhD programs and master’s programs,” she argues. “That, I think, will affect the feedstock that enables discovery.”

At a time when biotech in the US faces headwinds, biotech in China is gaining strength. Traditionally, says Zakes, the US has been viewed as “the gem of the biotech industry.” But “what we’re seeing now is China is starting to pick up the slack and do a very good job at creating an environment where things can be done quickly, efficiently, and relatively inexpensively. And we have to be mindful of that.”

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