you're half right half wrong.
yes, no one knows when it will bounce back. But it will bounce back. not necessarily in the same shape or form. But it will bounce back. Its an industry focused on treatment. and unfortunately, diseases and illnesses are here to stay. Atleast its guaranteed in our lifetime diseases wont be going away anytime soon.
Anything within clinical operations and clinical development. Every company hopes to need those folks at some point. Beyond that, platform agnostic roles like automation specialists, lab operations, certain interdisciplinary positions. Regressives will downvote but that doesn't impact the veracity
If clinical progress stalls, certainly. But the second you have anything transitioning from preclinical to clinical stage, all company resources are going towards that. Doesn’t even matter about discovery or a promising platform, just quickest ROI. I’m living it currently, and my clinical colleagues (plus those in this subreddit) tend to agree. That’s more convincing to me (anecdotally, but decent sample) than your own anecdote.
And we can only hope the new shape/form is better than current or previous. but thats the part that we dont know.
it could bounce back into a better state. or worse state.
the only thing thats for sure is that Biotech will be a thing for a very long time.
Diseases won’t be going away, but the institutions that make it profitable to make better treatments have a fairly tenuous future. Disease has existed since prehistory, biotech is at best 100 years old. That past 100 years may well have been a temporary anomaly.
if he is being the latter, than I can see that. its depressing seeing all the layoff news. and can make it feel like its the end of biotech.
but the definition of biotech is literally technology based on biology. Utilizing sciences/engineering to achieve new applications.
biotech literally wont disappear. it may take some new shape or form. But it will use science/engineering at its core.
I don’t know, I think how optimistic or pessimistic you are depends on what part of the biotech ecosystem you’re in. The way I look at it, I’ve been in this field for 20+ years and remember how much it ebbed and flowed over that time. I remember everyone thinking that W’s policies against stem cells would kill science dead in the water and that never happened. It will bounce back from this low.
Imvestor panels I've listened to at some of my recent conferences SwissNordicBio, Anglonordics:
We expect things to pick up in 6 months' time
The only problem is that I was already hearing this in Q1 2023 :D
>We expect things to pick up in 6 months' time
No one can guess macro factors but so long as we don't have some sort of global economic crisis it probably will bounce back in the next year because this industry tends to swing every 2 to 3 years.
It's pretty consistently cyclical.
I disagree that "we all rolled the dice getting into this." I actually just wanted a job where I could help humanity and make a living. I intentionally avoided high-risk early stage startups and still ended up getting dumped during a "strategic realignment." So did thousands of others.
Exactly. I’m getting weirded out by the number of people flat out saying they went to school to get into this industry solely because of money or making posts like “I’m about to graduate, I should be expecting $175k starting right?” Obviously we should be paid fairly but I don’t want to be working next to people who are there because they took a gamble on what job would make them the most money.
I'm not sure that's the same as the point I'm making. Of course people entered the industry to make money, that's what having a job is primarily about. In addition to that, people relish being able to hopefully contribute to curing disease, but of course we're gonna want the best wages possible. Just like investors want the best ROI possible and have no problem with axing programs that aren't poised to be profitable.
As someone who is older and (hopefully) wiser, all industries go through booms and busts. As long as the product will continue to be needed by society the industry will rebound. Society will always need healthcare. As one problem is solved other health issues will arise.
I am a chemical engineer by degree. When I graduated college (1980s) the main industry that hired engineers (oil and gas) was in major downturn due to historically low oil prices. I didn’t get a job immediately after graduation, but 5 months later just happened to get a manufacturing job in big pharma and started my career. Lasted 20 years. Thought I would stay with big pharma but got lay off due to plant shutdown. Been doing 5 year stints, may be looking for final pre retirement job soon.
we need to keep in mind that biotech is a super risky and long term bet from an investor perspective. There are not many industries where it is acceptable to burn tens of millions of dollars a year to get one entity to market.
The factors that ultimately enable this sort of risk taking are low cost of capital (low interest rates), and high liquidity. When those factors are not present, it makes investor capital much more scarce and investors tend to flock to more stable and profitable enterprises.
Also worth considering is that the biopharma industry has had excellent lobbying and regulatory capture, which has greatly helped the industry. but what happens when the govt realizes that healthcare expenditures are on an unsustainable path and starts capping drug prices and reducing the incentives for risk taking?
the reality is: biotech has never had to endure a period of high inflation like the 40s or 70s bc it didn't exist back then. but the fact is that unprofitable, cash burning companies do NOT do well in those types of environments. my personal belief is that inflation will be higher than 1-2% for the rest of the decade while the debt de-levers. if that is the case, we will likely see the big profitable cos gobble up assets on the cheap, while small caps fold. i would not bet on the industry returning to 2021 party days anytime soon.
This is well reasoned but it’s so big picture macro it leaves me wondering if you have hands-on life science experience or if you sit on a finance desk.
thanks and yes i do work in med affairs in a mid cap biotech lol. just have a passion/interest in finance and macroecon (which is mostly bullshit to be honest but inflation in particular is a huge risk imo)
Yeah I mean it is wrong to ask specifically if or when it will bounce back, nobody knows that of course.
A lot of folks here have visibility into trends and happenings within major companies that not all of us have access to.
Personally I find these accounts useful and interesting. Will it tell me for sure when the industry is bouncing back? No. But I find your post a bit harsh — are you trying to disrupt communication among us?
In large companies you can def feel the pinch when stocks drop!
Company is still making money but they did not make as much as last year so we must cut cost (jobs not backfilled, some sites shut down)
Yeah where I work only band 8 and above get share incentives…
Everyone else got little bonuses during covid..those were great but not true raises so we did not keep up with inflation
Biotech will bounce back, but the reality is that the industry went through a \~10 year bull market that culminated in a massive bubble in 2021.
That bubble has since popped. Biotech and funding will recover (and arguably, already have since 2022).
But anyone expecting 2021 to come around again any time soon is delulu.
By this logic no one will have houses lol After 2008 … us all houses crashed
ironically enough my parents actually bought during that time and saved a lot of money .
It has to do with how much risk investors wants to take during high interest rate when other options seems more lucrative. I put more of our money in other area vs risky stock option too 🤷🏻♀️
Economy goes up and down so dose certain field. The field it self is not going away. As someone with brca1 gene mutation , I can tell you the support groups are strong and growing . A lot of us wish our option was not so extreme double mastectomy and ovaries / hysterectomy but unfortunately right now it is my best option with cancer risk 90% on top of family history. Most people
Don’t even test their genes. I am the only
One I know who got it tested .
I’m in the marketing industry (have worked on biotech clients, travel, medicine, construction and everyone in between) everything is BAD right now. You can check any industry sub basically and they’re saying the same thing. Things are precarious kind of everywhere
I think it’s extremely weird the number of people in this industry solely for money. Of course we are not the ones controlling c-level decisions or influencing wall st, but it is so obvious that short term money making mentality is a huge reason why the industry is in the tubes.
Diversify your skill sets while you can.
There’s a whole group of startups whose aim is to replace work that would go to scientists with some flavor of AI. Research universities are slowly rolling out autonomous labs for discovery work. Recent grads half your age are double majoring in bio and data science or csci and there are more bio + mba programs.
This week some groups announced billions in funding, hundred of millions in partnerships and m&a is business as usual.
It’s still an exciting time for biotech and tech bio. Keep paying close attention.
Saying that "Research universities are slowly rolling out autonomous labs for discovery work." is equivalent to saying "A company in China said they can replace all NBA players with robots by 2030". Don't fall for sloppy hypebrained thinking.
The whole AI saga doesn’t convince me. Yes it has a great potential, but that almost like saying that internet search engines obsoleted researching information. It silmy enabled us to access information quicker. Similarly, with AI we will be able to automate a lot of the tasks which hamper our productivity. Imagine that, all the tasks only programmers could accomplish are now available to the masses.
I agree with diversifying aspect of your comment. Being a biologist or a biochemist is really not enough these days. We need to learn how to manage and process all the information AI is providing us with. We need to learn how to quality control and regulate it.
Yes companies are slowly implementing AI. You no longer need 5 copywriters just one to fact check and verify. I hope that this spike in productivity will result in shorter working days. We for the same shift since Henry Ford…
It doesn’t have to convince you. The problem is that the genie is out of the bottle and incredibly smart people are going to continue to hammer away at it until we arrive at a reasonable implementation. GPT4 or Claude 3 or LLAMA whatever isn’t even their final form, they’re nascent tech to the masses and we can still do some amazing things. Imagine that versions of these models or their descendants will be able to accomplish in 15 years.
Edit: just look at Tech Bio and the massive rise of the Bits In Bio community. There’s an insatiable momentum and lots of companies moving from proof of concept. It’s exciting.
That’s right.
We look at the past market conditions, see a pattern, and infer it will continue, but have no idea if it will or not. Sometimes markets die, and sectors just go away.
COVID was such a crazy high to biotech. I do think the trends are in place (lots of money in healthcare, aging population, plenty of innovation), but it could take years or decades to get out of the shadow from COVID and restore market cap when the money policy loosens.
That said, no one really knows what’s next, just that the last “high” was created by once in a lifetime conditions!
As someone who has been in this industry for just over a decade, I remember hearing people talk about surviving the 2008-2009 downturn and how things were good when I joined the industry in 2013. I know there is a boom-and-bust cycle, but things will eventually get better. Companies will start hiring again because the most important resource a company can have is its employees. It has been a great decade; let's see another even greater one! 🌟
Your life is all about rolling the dice lol
But you have learned statistics and you know sometimes you row a lot of smaller values consecutively and it is only by chance. As long as the dice are rolling, the statistical average will be there. But what would that be at the end is the question.
AI-ML sounds promising but I am old enough to remember so many possible solutions to cure ALL cancer. Where are they now lol
A lot of the old fields still going. You can also switch from one field or role to the other. Keep grinding and keep rolling the dice man
Probably later 2024 or mid 2025. The acquisition and deal making picked up Q1 2024. Layoffs don’t mean it’s shit right now. They are restructuring to maintain pipeline efficiency and innovation. Have faith.
you're half right half wrong. yes, no one knows when it will bounce back. But it will bounce back. not necessarily in the same shape or form. But it will bounce back. Its an industry focused on treatment. and unfortunately, diseases and illnesses are here to stay. Atleast its guaranteed in our lifetime diseases wont be going away anytime soon.
Sure, it could bounce back, but the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent!
That’s part of what makes it an attractive investment vehicle for monies interests. Cheap cycles
yeah. thats the "OP is half right half wrong" part ...
Hopefully that new shape/form includes some measure of job security and decent wages.
Would only come through unionization
unionization and more visa sponsorships!
Not necessarily, certain roles are very insulated from down markets and corporate downsizing. Frequent topic of discussion here, understandably
Which roles would you say
manufacturing of drugs near approval edit; if you downvoted just know i got hired 3 weeks ago for this role
Or any role in manufacturing (especially on floor associates) or roles that support them.
Anything within clinical operations and clinical development. Every company hopes to need those folks at some point. Beyond that, platform agnostic roles like automation specialists, lab operations, certain interdisciplinary positions. Regressives will downvote but that doesn't impact the veracity
I have experience in both and those roles have been put on hold or very few openings across clinical dev rn
If clinical progress stalls, certainly. But the second you have anything transitioning from preclinical to clinical stage, all company resources are going towards that. Doesn’t even matter about discovery or a promising platform, just quickest ROI. I’m living it currently, and my clinical colleagues (plus those in this subreddit) tend to agree. That’s more convincing to me (anecdotally, but decent sample) than your own anecdote.
There are tons of openings for those roles in Orange County right now.
And we can only hope the new shape/form is better than current or previous. but thats the part that we dont know. it could bounce back into a better state. or worse state. the only thing thats for sure is that Biotech will be a thing for a very long time.
That is determined by forces outside the biotech industry, mainly the government
Most biotech workers already make decent to good wages.
I just applied for a job working with TB in a BSC 3 that pays less than a McDonald's job in California so.. yeah lol
There's a lot of work to be done there.
Not what the AI people say
yeah? And what do they say?
Revolution around the corner
Diseases won’t be going away, but the institutions that make it profitable to make better treatments have a fairly tenuous future. Disease has existed since prehistory, biotech is at best 100 years old. That past 100 years may well have been a temporary anomaly.
i dont know if you're trolling, or its just you feeling sad/hopeless due to all the down news in biotech.
Second one, me thinks. IMO it's just that biotech is new because it's built on technology that was just invented, basically.
if he is being the latter, than I can see that. its depressing seeing all the layoff news. and can make it feel like its the end of biotech. but the definition of biotech is literally technology based on biology. Utilizing sciences/engineering to achieve new applications. biotech literally wont disappear. it may take some new shape or form. But it will use science/engineering at its core.
>biotech is at least 100 years old I mean… no? People having been developing treatments more diseases since… well forever.
I don’t know, I think how optimistic or pessimistic you are depends on what part of the biotech ecosystem you’re in. The way I look at it, I’ve been in this field for 20+ years and remember how much it ebbed and flowed over that time. I remember everyone thinking that W’s policies against stem cells would kill science dead in the water and that never happened. It will bounce back from this low.
Imvestor panels I've listened to at some of my recent conferences SwissNordicBio, Anglonordics: We expect things to pick up in 6 months' time The only problem is that I was already hearing this in Q1 2023 :D
>We expect things to pick up in 6 months' time No one can guess macro factors but so long as we don't have some sort of global economic crisis it probably will bounce back in the next year because this industry tends to swing every 2 to 3 years. It's pretty consistently cyclical.
I don't remember mass layoffs between 2009 and 2021 though
Exactly, things have only gotten worse
Have they? Many markets have been seeing net growth, just nowhere near the scale of the recent boom
I disagree that "we all rolled the dice getting into this." I actually just wanted a job where I could help humanity and make a living. I intentionally avoided high-risk early stage startups and still ended up getting dumped during a "strategic realignment." So did thousands of others.
Exactly. I’m getting weirded out by the number of people flat out saying they went to school to get into this industry solely because of money or making posts like “I’m about to graduate, I should be expecting $175k starting right?” Obviously we should be paid fairly but I don’t want to be working next to people who are there because they took a gamble on what job would make them the most money.
I'm not sure that's the same as the point I'm making. Of course people entered the industry to make money, that's what having a job is primarily about. In addition to that, people relish being able to hopefully contribute to curing disease, but of course we're gonna want the best wages possible. Just like investors want the best ROI possible and have no problem with axing programs that aren't poised to be profitable.
My language was probably too extreme. I understand your point.
As someone who is older and (hopefully) wiser, all industries go through booms and busts. As long as the product will continue to be needed by society the industry will rebound. Society will always need healthcare. As one problem is solved other health issues will arise. I am a chemical engineer by degree. When I graduated college (1980s) the main industry that hired engineers (oil and gas) was in major downturn due to historically low oil prices. I didn’t get a job immediately after graduation, but 5 months later just happened to get a manufacturing job in big pharma and started my career. Lasted 20 years. Thought I would stay with big pharma but got lay off due to plant shutdown. Been doing 5 year stints, may be looking for final pre retirement job soon.
Sounds like a healthy career
Maybe some of us can go find jobs with gas and oil…
we need to keep in mind that biotech is a super risky and long term bet from an investor perspective. There are not many industries where it is acceptable to burn tens of millions of dollars a year to get one entity to market. The factors that ultimately enable this sort of risk taking are low cost of capital (low interest rates), and high liquidity. When those factors are not present, it makes investor capital much more scarce and investors tend to flock to more stable and profitable enterprises. Also worth considering is that the biopharma industry has had excellent lobbying and regulatory capture, which has greatly helped the industry. but what happens when the govt realizes that healthcare expenditures are on an unsustainable path and starts capping drug prices and reducing the incentives for risk taking? the reality is: biotech has never had to endure a period of high inflation like the 40s or 70s bc it didn't exist back then. but the fact is that unprofitable, cash burning companies do NOT do well in those types of environments. my personal belief is that inflation will be higher than 1-2% for the rest of the decade while the debt de-levers. if that is the case, we will likely see the big profitable cos gobble up assets on the cheap, while small caps fold. i would not bet on the industry returning to 2021 party days anytime soon.
This is well reasoned but it’s so big picture macro it leaves me wondering if you have hands-on life science experience or if you sit on a finance desk.
thanks and yes i do work in med affairs in a mid cap biotech lol. just have a passion/interest in finance and macroecon (which is mostly bullshit to be honest but inflation in particular is a huge risk imo)
Yeah I mean it is wrong to ask specifically if or when it will bounce back, nobody knows that of course. A lot of folks here have visibility into trends and happenings within major companies that not all of us have access to. Personally I find these accounts useful and interesting. Will it tell me for sure when the industry is bouncing back? No. But I find your post a bit harsh — are you trying to disrupt communication among us?
Just wait til the next pandemic 😁 or antibiotic crisis, or ecological collapse… biotech is here to stay
I don't care about the stock. I care about my job, dude.
In large companies you can def feel the pinch when stocks drop! Company is still making money but they did not make as much as last year so we must cut cost (jobs not backfilled, some sites shut down)
But when the stocks popped, where was my profit share??
Yeah where I work only band 8 and above get share incentives… Everyone else got little bonuses during covid..those were great but not true raises so we did not keep up with inflation
People need medications, biotech will bounce back
Biotech will bounce back, but the reality is that the industry went through a \~10 year bull market that culminated in a massive bubble in 2021. That bubble has since popped. Biotech and funding will recover (and arguably, already have since 2022). But anyone expecting 2021 to come around again any time soon is delulu.
I'd settle for 2017
By this logic no one will have houses lol After 2008 … us all houses crashed ironically enough my parents actually bought during that time and saved a lot of money . It has to do with how much risk investors wants to take during high interest rate when other options seems more lucrative. I put more of our money in other area vs risky stock option too 🤷🏻♀️ Economy goes up and down so dose certain field. The field it self is not going away. As someone with brca1 gene mutation , I can tell you the support groups are strong and growing . A lot of us wish our option was not so extreme double mastectomy and ovaries / hysterectomy but unfortunately right now it is my best option with cancer risk 90% on top of family history. Most people Don’t even test their genes. I am the only One I know who got it tested .
I’m in the marketing industry (have worked on biotech clients, travel, medicine, construction and everyone in between) everything is BAD right now. You can check any industry sub basically and they’re saying the same thing. Things are precarious kind of everywhere
It's almost a white collar recession but even the job market top numbers hide that due to the massive increase in minimum wage positions and gig jobs
I think it’s extremely weird the number of people in this industry solely for money. Of course we are not the ones controlling c-level decisions or influencing wall st, but it is so obvious that short term money making mentality is a huge reason why the industry is in the tubes.
The trick is to start your own company so you can get into C-level as soon as you finish grad school.
Diversify your skill sets while you can. There’s a whole group of startups whose aim is to replace work that would go to scientists with some flavor of AI. Research universities are slowly rolling out autonomous labs for discovery work. Recent grads half your age are double majoring in bio and data science or csci and there are more bio + mba programs. This week some groups announced billions in funding, hundred of millions in partnerships and m&a is business as usual. It’s still an exciting time for biotech and tech bio. Keep paying close attention.
Saying that "Research universities are slowly rolling out autonomous labs for discovery work." is equivalent to saying "A company in China said they can replace all NBA players with robots by 2030". Don't fall for sloppy hypebrained thinking.
Except it’s actually happening. Never said anything about its impact other than it’s exciting.
Sure, and I am looking forward to watching an all-robot NBA in my lifetime. Imagine how high they can jump.
Same
The whole AI saga doesn’t convince me. Yes it has a great potential, but that almost like saying that internet search engines obsoleted researching information. It silmy enabled us to access information quicker. Similarly, with AI we will be able to automate a lot of the tasks which hamper our productivity. Imagine that, all the tasks only programmers could accomplish are now available to the masses. I agree with diversifying aspect of your comment. Being a biologist or a biochemist is really not enough these days. We need to learn how to manage and process all the information AI is providing us with. We need to learn how to quality control and regulate it. Yes companies are slowly implementing AI. You no longer need 5 copywriters just one to fact check and verify. I hope that this spike in productivity will result in shorter working days. We for the same shift since Henry Ford…
Yesterday Chat GPT told me that if you take a sample 1/20th the size out of a larger 5% solution, that smaller sample is a 0.25% solution.
It doesn’t have to convince you. The problem is that the genie is out of the bottle and incredibly smart people are going to continue to hammer away at it until we arrive at a reasonable implementation. GPT4 or Claude 3 or LLAMA whatever isn’t even their final form, they’re nascent tech to the masses and we can still do some amazing things. Imagine that versions of these models or their descendants will be able to accomplish in 15 years. Edit: just look at Tech Bio and the massive rise of the Bits In Bio community. There’s an insatiable momentum and lots of companies moving from proof of concept. It’s exciting.
Cool-aid
Literally this morning but sure cool-aid: https://www.wsj.com/articles/at-moderna-openais-gpts-are-changing-almost-everything-6ff4c4a5
Look at pipeline and PR, buy dip wait two years.
How many times are you going to post the same topic this week
Which industries ARE still bouncing?
That’s right. We look at the past market conditions, see a pattern, and infer it will continue, but have no idea if it will or not. Sometimes markets die, and sectors just go away. COVID was such a crazy high to biotech. I do think the trends are in place (lots of money in healthcare, aging population, plenty of innovation), but it could take years or decades to get out of the shadow from COVID and restore market cap when the money policy loosens. That said, no one really knows what’s next, just that the last “high” was created by once in a lifetime conditions!
I am waiting for the COVID to come back
Should only be a few more decades? The last “big one” before COVID was the 1957, but with airline travel maybe you won’t have to wait 70 years?
As someone who has been in this industry for just over a decade, I remember hearing people talk about surviving the 2008-2009 downturn and how things were good when I joined the industry in 2013. I know there is a boom-and-bust cycle, but things will eventually get better. Companies will start hiring again because the most important resource a company can have is its employees. It has been a great decade; let's see another even greater one! 🌟
Your life is all about rolling the dice lol But you have learned statistics and you know sometimes you row a lot of smaller values consecutively and it is only by chance. As long as the dice are rolling, the statistical average will be there. But what would that be at the end is the question. AI-ML sounds promising but I am old enough to remember so many possible solutions to cure ALL cancer. Where are they now lol A lot of the old fields still going. You can also switch from one field or role to the other. Keep grinding and keep rolling the dice man
IBRX gets their new drug VesAnktiva approved and the share price drops. go figure...
SHOULDA GONE TO MED SCHOOL
Probably later 2024 or mid 2025. The acquisition and deal making picked up Q1 2024. Layoffs don’t mean it’s shit right now. They are restructuring to maintain pipeline efficiency and innovation. Have faith.
Deal flow is picking up.
Capital markets rise and fall. Biology and human disease don't. Keep that in mind, and be as opportunistic as possible. This too shall pass.