Husband. Father of 2 exhausting boys. Director of Biopharma Intelligence @BioCentury. Lives → U.K., roots in Minnesota. Opinions my own. Landscape photography⬇⬇
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Articles by Stephen Hansen
ESMO’s first-in-human signals, Auchincloss’ proposal & COINS reaction — a BioCentury podcast
Plus: Woodcock on making individualized rare disease therapies commercially viable By Stephen Hansen, Director of Biopharma Intelligence • ADC payload innovation at ESMO — Antibody-drug conjugates are spreading quickly into new tumor antigens, but heavy reliance on topoisomerase I payloads suggests future differentiation, sequencing success, and resistance management will depend on newer payload mechanisms • Faster Clinical Trials Act — Embedding research in routine care and creating an...
Pharma a safe haven from an AI crash?
DATA GRAPHICS | Data Byte Friday’s tech sell-off hints at a defensive role for large-cap biopharma, but not necessarily biotech more broadly By Stephen Hansen, Director of Biopharma Intelligence A single trading day offers limited evidence, but Friday’s sharp divergence between tech and large-cap biopharma stocks suggests the latter could offer investors a refuge if the AI bubble bursts.
Stoffels turns to Indian pharma to revive CAR T programs
ARTICLE | Finance Mankind’s majority investment backs start-up Armed Cell amid weak VC appetite for cell therapy companies By Stephen Hansen, Director of Biopharma Intelligence A year after Galapagos announced plans to wind down its cell therapy business, its former CEO Paul Stoffels is reviving the preclinical pipeline in a new start-up. This time, he has an unconventional partner.
Valuing a preclinical biotech at $50B is a bad idea — a Perspective
ARTICLE | Editor's Commentary If the rumors are true, Isomorphic Labs would require near perfect clinical execution to justify the valuation By Stephen Hansen, Director of Biopharma Intelligence Rumors are circulating that prominent preclinical AI drug discovery biotech Isomorphic Labs is in negotiations to raise new capital at a valuation that could be as high as $50 billion. If true, that number is incongruent with biotech market comparators, and at worst, it could harm the company’s future.
4Q26 Public Markets Preview: Pause before the storm?
ARTICLE | Finance Investors expect quiet fourth quarter amid macro risks, hopes of renewed M&A activity By Stephen Hansen, Director of Biopharma Intelligence After a strong first half for biotech in 2026, the market pause in the third quarter is likely to extend through year-end unless macro headwinds ease or M&A, which carried markets earlier this year, meaningfully picks up again. Both M&A and follow-on activity slowed in 3Q26. Investors believe a short squeeze in Moderna Inc.
Scaling up an innovation culture: a Q&A with argenx’s Karen Massey
ARTICLE | Product Development How argenx seeks to preserve entrepreneurial science as it grows By Stephen Hansen, Director of Biopharma Intelligence As the biggest European biotech start-up success in the past 20 years, argenx faces a challenge: preserving the entrepreneurial culture that helped produce blockbuster Vyvgart efgartigimod while scaling up and finding its next major medicine.
Lilly differentiates again in amylin race
DATA GRAPHICS | Data Byte Eloralintide-tirzepatide combo shows best weight loss yet in obese Type II diabetes patients By Stephen Hansen, Director of Biopharma Intelligence The world’s most valuable biopharma company has again separated itself from its closest rival after presenting Phase IIb data for the combination of amylin agonist eloralintide plus obesity market leader Zepbound, beating not only Novo’s CagriSema, but also its own triple agonist retatrutide.
Novo gets shot at weekly obesity pill as Hengrui gets another MNC deal
ARTICLE | Deals Novo adds once-weekly oral GLP1R/GIPR dual agonist for $300M up front By Stephen Hansen, Director of Biopharma Intelligence Novo Nordisk has spent several years expanding into new therapeutic areas via business development, but a series of deals this year have the Danish pharma building out one of its core therapeutic areas, obesity.
How Europe’s VCs are chasing NewCo deals in China
ARTICLE | Finance As European investors court Chinese biotechs for assets, deal terms — from equity stakes to IPO commitments — are evolving By Stephen Hansen, Director of Biopharma Intelligence European VCs are spending more and more time in China, hunting for assets and building relationships that could produce NewCo investment opportunities in the future.
Novartis’ growth drivers, beyond the setbacks
ARTICLE | Product Development From assets against BTK to BAFF-R, Swiss pharma looking ahead to other pipeline inflection points By Stephen Hansen, Director of Biopharma Intelligence A pair of negative Phase III readouts will put a dent in Novartis’ growth story, but shouldn’t derail the broader thesis for the Swiss pharma. It hasn’t been a stellar September for Novartis AG (SIX:NOVN; NYSE:NVS), which has suffered three setbacks in the span of a week. ...
Menarini pushes into obesity via Gan & Lee deal
ARTICLE | Deals Data for twice-monthly GLP-1R agonist were competitive vs. market leaders Zepbound and Wegovy By Stephen Hansen, Director of Biopharma Intelligence Italian pharma Menarini is making its first push into obesity via a licensing deal with Chinese company Gan & Lee for twice-monthly GLP-1R agonist bofanglutide, which showed strong efficacy data earlier this year compared to market leader Zepbound tirzepatide.
Can silencers add benefit in ATTR-CM?
ARTICLE | Product Development Detailed data from Phase III CARDIO-TTRansform trial of eplontersen from AZ/Ionis raise more questions By Stephen Hansen, Director of Biopharma Intelligence Detailed data from Wainua’s CARDIO-TTRansform study showed that in patients on TTR stabilizers at baseline, adding the TTR-targeting antisense oligo from Ionis and AZ led to worse outcomes than treatment with stabilizers alone. Partners Ionis Pharmaceuticals Inc.
Denmark, Spain, and the U.K. build fast lanes for FIH trials — Back to School 2026
ARTICLE | Regulation National initiatives are pushing review times well below EU-wide targets By Stephen Hansen, Director of Biopharma Intelligence While Europe is pursuing broader clinical trial reforms through the proposed European Biotech Act, individual countries have launched fast-track review pathways for first-in-human trials with globally competitive timelines.
Big ambitions, big fractures — Europe’s FIH conundrum: Back to School 2026
ARTICLE | Regulation Can Europe overcome its fractured regulatory environment to be globally competitive? By Stephen Hansen, Director of Biopharma Intelligence As countries around the world race to update regulations and policies for launching clinical trials, alarm bells are ringing in Europe too about the need to compete for R&D.
Spain, Denmark, and U.K. build fast lanes for FIH trials — Back to School 2026
ARTICLE | Product Development National initiatives are pushing review times well below EU-wide targets By Stephen Hansen, Director of Biopharma Intelligence While Europe is pursuing broader clinical trial reforms through the proposed European Biotech Act, individual countries have launched fast-track review pathways for first-in-human trials with globally competitive timelines.
Remote Work Across Jobs, Companies and Space
Research Department Working Papers No. 2629 Abstract: The pandemic catalyzed an enduring shift to remote work. To measure this shift, we develop a large language model (LLM), fine tune and assess it using 30,000 human classifications, and apply it to nearly 600 million job vacancy postings across five English-speaking countries.
AZ investors aren’t buying it — neither am I
ARTICLE | Editor's Commentary It’s hard to see any strategic sense in the rumored merger of AstraZeneca and Bristol Myers: a Perspective By Stephen Hansen, Director of Biopharma Intelligence By now everyone has seen the reports that AstraZeneca and Bristol Myers Squibb have been in talks about a merger. I don’t think I’ve been this shocked by biopharma news in a long time. First off, it isn’t really news. At least not yet. These sorts of rumors could be leaked for multiple reasons. ...
More biotechs queue up to go public: Public Equity Report
ARTICLE | Finance Plus: Erasca raises $632.5M follow-on to accelerate pivotal trials of RAS inhibitor By Stephen Hansen, Director of Biopharma Intelligence At least five private companies started their journey toward the public markets this week: four filed for traditional IPOs on NASDAQ, while a fifth proposed a reverse merger. The four S-1 filers were neurology company Apnimed, immunology play Attovia, cardiovascular company Braveheart Bio, and metabolic company Vogenx. ...
Lilly M&A spree now includes $3.8B psychedelics bet on AtaiBeckley
ARTICLE | Deals BPL-003 offers a shorter treatment visit, but efficacy and durability advantages over COMP360 remain to be shown By Stephen Hansen, Director of Biopharma Intelligence, and Tierney Baum, Biopharma Analyst Flush with rapidly growing revenues, Lilly agreed Thursday to acquire AtaiBeckley for up to $3.8 billion, marking its 12th announced acquisition of the year and its entry into psychedelics.
Biotech’s historic M&A run rate
DATA GRAPHICS | Data Byte Deals surpassed $135 billion in 1H26, putting an all-time annual high within reach By Stephen Hansen, Director of Biopharma Intelligence Biotech M&A is on pace in 2026 to eclipse 2014's all-time record of $209.3 billion in total deal value, based on first-half activity.
Perspective — siRNAs are better than ASOs
ARTICLE | Editor's Commentary Why it might be time to just admit that siRNAs are the better modality By Stephen Hansen, Director of Biopharma Intelligence I think we may have reached the point at which we can just say that siRNAs are better therapeutic molecules than antisense oligonucleotides.
Can M&A momentum carry biotech through year-end?
ARTICLE | Finance M&A enthusiasm is carrying biotech amid tepid reception for launches. What happens if the AI trade goes bust? By Stephen Hansen, Director of Biopharma Intelligence A historic run of M&A drovebiotech’s outperformance in the first half of the year, with most investors expecting dealmaking to continue to support the sector through 3Q26. Heading into the summer months, biotech’s public markets are in a good place. Financings are being upsized and showing good postmarket performance.
Parkinson’s deep dive & FDA trial reforms — a BioCentury podcast
Plus AZ’s obesity build-out and FDA’s reversion to the mean on regulatory decisions By Stephen Hansen, Director of Biopharma Intelligence New Parkinson’s disease programs aim to move beyond the historical norm of symptom management, branching into targeted therapeutics and cell therapies. On the latest BioCentury This Week podcast, BioCentury’s analysts review the most promising targets and trends shaping the Parkinson’s treatment landscape.
Building out in obesity
ARTICLE | Product Development AstraZeneca is building an obesity portfolio it hopes can compete beyond the GLP-1 incumbents By Stephen Hansen, Director of Biopharma Intelligence AstraZeneca is quietly assembling an obesity portfolio that could give it a credible path to challenge the entrenched leaders in the space, while adding a new leg of growth beyond 2030.
Two healthcare investors go global together
ARTICLE | Finance Merger of GHO Capital and CBC Group combine complementary investment strategies, geographies By Stephen Hansen, Director of Biopharma Intelligence The merger of GHO Capital and CBC Group could function as a template for firms aiming to build a global investment platform with synergies across both regions and healthcare subsectors — if political headwinds don’t dampen the incentives for doing so.
Sizing up Lilly’s dealmaking spree
DATA GRAPHICS | Data Byte Megacap commits over $45B towards M&A and partnerships so far in 2026 By Stephen Hansen, Director of Biopharma Intelligence While most pharmas have been searching for commercial or late-stage assets to plug near-term LOE holes, the world’s most valuable biopharma company has been using its strong cash flows to build for the long term. It comes as little surprise that Eli Lilly and Co. (NYSE:LLY) has been on a spending spree given the coffers it has to work with.
Servier continues M&A buildout, acquires Edgewise’s neuro programs
ARTICLE | Deals $1.6B buyout for sevasemten marks first big neuro move for Servier By Stephen Hansen, Director of Biopharma Intelligence Servier is once again turning to business development in an effort to accelerate the buildout of a therapeutic area business.
Europe’s next big growth fund could help narrow biotech’s capital gap
ARTICLE | Finance EQT’s €5B cross-sector fund could give European biotechs another homegrown option for growth capital By Stephen Hansen, Director of Biopharma Intelligence Europe is getting another infusion of growth capital via the €5 billion Scaleup Europe Fund. While the fund will invest across a broad range of innovative sectors, private equity firm EQT Partners’ selection as fund manager — and its life sciences investing expertise — suggest a meaningful share could flow into biotech.
Retatrutide data strengthen Lilly’s hand in high-BMI obesity
DATA GRAPHICS | Product Development Phase III data put weight loss above CagriSema’s benchmark, with tolerability that may be good enough to preserve a commercial edge By Stephen Hansen, Director of Biopharma Intelligence Lilly again has the frontrunner in the weight loss Olympics: its triple agonist retatrutide showed greater Phase III obesity efficacy than Novo Nordisk’s dual-acting CagriSema, with a tolerability profile that does not appear markedly worse.
Incretins continue to dominate obesity conferences
ARTICLE | Product Development An analysis of ECO 2026 abstracts finds just six new targets proposed for obesity; vast majority remain focused on GLP-1R By Stephen Hansen, Director of Biopharma Intelligence Obesity is far and away the industry’s biggest growth area, but there’s a challenge appearing on the horizon: the field has few new targets that could expand treatment beyond incretin-based therapies.
Europe’s need for speed: Bio€quity takeaways — a BioCentury podcast
Takeaways from BioCentury’s 26th annual conference, including Europe’s place in speeding up the time to first-in-human data By Stephen Hansen, Director of Biopharma Intelligence China’s speed in generating first-in-human data has catalyzed a race across the globe to reshape regulatory requirements to compete.
Kurma’s latest fundraise highlights challenges for early-stage VCs
ARTICLE | Finance European investor closes new fund at €215M — a 34% increase over its predecessor — with half earmarked for company creation By Stephen Hansen, Director of Biopharma Intelligence There’s good news for European biotechs as an early-stage fund from Kurma Partners raised more than €200 million, injecting more capital into the ecosystem.
Elevara: Targeting a non-immune driver of rheumatoid arthritis
ARTICLE | Emerging Company Profile U.K. biotech aims to deliver CDK4/6 inhibitor with wider therapeutic window than cancer therapies in the class By Stephen Hansen, Director of Biopharma Intelligence Autoimmune disease is one of biopharma’s busiest areas, but that enthusiasm has largely skipped rheumatoid arthritis, where no new mechanism has been approved since the first JAK inhibitor in 2012.
Recent megadeals reset the high end of private biotech M&A
DATA GRAPHICS | Data Byte Two biggest upfront payments for venture-backed biotech takeouts came this month; Kelonia’s was 65x the capital it raised By Stephen Hansen, Director of Biopharma Intelligence Headlined by this week’s Lilly takeout of Kelonia, a handful of recent deals suggests the ceiling for private biotech M&A may be moving higher, as pharmas compete for clinical assets in favored modalities and therapeutic areas.
Forbion’s Slootweg on Europe’s funding environment
Slootweg also details Forbion’s meteoric rise to become the largest independent European VC, and hunting for new assets in Asia By Stephen Hansen, Director of Biopharma Intelligence The European biotech ecosystem has gone through a substantial maturation process over the past 20 years, as VC funds such as Forbion have experienced exponential growth to fund the region’s innovation.
A 32-year look at biotech’s capital expansion
DATA GRAPHICS | Data Byte Half of all biotech equity capital raised since 1994 came in the last eight years By Stephen Hansen, Director of Biopharma Intelligence The surge in biotech financing during the COVID era was not a one-off event, but part of a longer-term expansion in the sector’s access to capital, driven in part by the growth of specialist investors that build companies and recycle gains back into biotech.
Resiliency in the face of volatility
ARTICLE | Finance BioCentury’s 2Q26 Public Markets Preview By Stephen Hansen, Director of Biopharma Intelligence Biotech markets look to maintain their outperformance heading into 2Q26 as geopolitical uncertainty reigns as the supreme overhang. Investors and bankers who spoke to BioCentury expect the primary drivers of the first quarter — strong follow-on and M&A markets — to continue to be the support for the sector in the near term... Just want immediate access to this one article?
Wave loses half its market cap on obesity data
ARTICLE | Product Development mRNA expression data suggest little additional efficacy to be gained from higher doses of INHBE-targeted WVE-007 By Stephen Hansen, Director of Biopharma Intelligence Updated data from Wave’s Phase I trial of WVE-007 disappointed investors, as a higher dose of the siRNA did not show greater efficacy than the low-dose data reported last December. But given the similar degree of mRNA reduction at both doses, those expectations may have been too high to begin with.
Arrowhead’s bid to become a large-cap biotech
ARTICLE | Product Development After 20 years of platform building and resets, Redemplo, cardiometabolic breadth and extrahepatic delivery could drive biotech’s next growth phase By Stephen Hansen, Director of Biopharma Intelligence As it embarkson its first commercial launch, Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals believes it has built the pipeline and enabling technologies needed to enter a steep period of value creation. It only took 20 years to get here. Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals Inc.
Can tolerability make petrelintide competitive in obesity?
ARTICLE | Product Development As they head to Phase III, Zealand and Roche are betting a cleaner patient experience can offset weaker weight loss than rival amylin agonists By Stephen Hansen, Director of Biopharma Intelligence Although Zealand’s petrelintide has fallen short of other clinical amylin programs on efficacy, its benign tolerability profile highlights the promise of the target in obesity.
Prasad’s departure, the future of fibrosis therapies, and more — a BioCentury podcast
Clinical updates from psychedelics and obesity therapies also among episode’s highlights By Stephen Hansen, Director of Biopharma Intelligence The second ousting of Vinay Prasad from FDA in the past eight months won’t lead to major changes at the agency, other than selecting a successor tasked with keeping FDA out of the news ahead of the coming midterm elections.
SoftBank’s Fok on AI, Metsera and U.K.’s opportunity
Jacqueline Fok in conversation with Stephen Hansen on The BioCentury Show By Stephen Hansen, Director of Biopharma Intelligence There is a real opportunity for artificial intelligence to dramatically transform the speed, cost and efficiency of drug development over the long term, but the uptake of AI tools across biopharma has been much slower relative to the broader healthcare environment, SoftBank’s Jacqueline Fok said on The BioCentury Show.
Alveus: Best-in-class opportunity in obesity
ARTICLE | Emerging Company Profile ALV-100 targets up to every six-month dosing frequency, with amylin selective program behind By Stephen Hansen, Director of Biopharma Intelligence Alveus believes it could have best-in-class obesity therapies for both the maintenance setting and amylin class within its pipeline, differentiating on tolerability and infrequent dosing benefits.
Novo’s ‘triple G’ shows competitive weight loss in partner’s Phase II
DATA GRAPHICS | Data Byte UBT251 delivers 17.7% placebo-adjusted loss at 24 weeks in China study By Stephen Hansen, Director of Biopharma Intelligence One day after Novo Nordisk’s valuation took a hit when CagriSema failed to match the efficacy of Lilly’s Zepbound, the Danish pharma got a consolation prize: promising Phase II data from a next-generation obesity program. United Biotechnology, a subsidiary of United Laboratories International Holdings Ltd.
CagriSema’s commercial prospects dim further after head-to-head miss
ARTICLE | Product Development Novo’s combo delivers less weight loss than tirzepatide in REDEFINE 4 By Stephen Hansen, Director of Biopharma Intelligence Novo Nordisk’s bid to slow Eli Lilly’s takeover of the obesity market stumbled again Mondayafter CagriSema fell short to Zepbound in a head-to-head Phase III trial. The result complicates Novo’s plan to launch CagriSema this year and pushes out its timeline for bringing a best-in-class therapy to the obesity market.
Nektar, Evommune capitalize on positive Phase II readouts in atopic dermatitis: Public Equity Report
ARTICLE | Finance Plus financings for Immunic, Galecto and Sutro By Stephen Hansen, Director of Biopharma Intelligence A pair of catalyst-driven financings headlined at least five nine-figure deals this week, as companies took advantage of positive clinical readouts or the opportunity to add specialist investors to their shareholder base via PIPE transactions. Nektar Therapeutics Inc.
EU investors sound the alarm
ARTICLE | Finance New coalition calls for increased capital inflows into EU biotech funds, improved capital markets, faster clinical trials By Stephen Hansen, Director of Biopharma Intelligence A confluence of falling equity and R&D investment in Europe, coupled with geopolitical instability, has convinced a group of blue-chip European VCs that now is the moment tomount a coordinated push to strengthen domestic biotech financing — and to press for policy and regulatory changes aimed at...
The next wave of biotech growth - a Perspective
ARTICLE | BioCentury Commentary How a new wave of launches could drive sustainable sector growth akin to the early 2010s By Stephen Hansen, Director of Biopharma Intelligence Over the past 15 years, biotechinvestors havechased trendswhere the promise of scientific breakthroughs hasn’t translated into commercial success, or if it has, the value creationof the innovation has been largely devoured by a few large pharmasrather than the biotechs that pioneered the programs.
Obesity data weigh on Pfizer shares, but growing pipeline has multiple catalysts
ARTICLE | Product Development Once-monthly GLP1R agonist from Metsera deal may require higher dose in Phase III to differentiate By Stephen Hansen, Director of Biopharma Intelligence The latest data for Pfizer’s recently acquired Metsera obesity asset confirm the potential for once-monthly dosing, but likely will require higher doses to differentiate from other programs in development. In parallel with announcing its 4Q25 earnings, Pfizer Inc.
2026 Obesity Catalysts: Launches, readouts and challengers
ARTICLE | Product Development Oral GLP-1 launches, more Phase III data and a slate of proof-of-concept readouts headline upcoming milestones By Stephen Hansen, Director of Biopharma Intelligence Heading into 2026 the obesity race is widening, with recent readouts teeing up new mechanisms and new players that could challenge today’s GLP-1 standard on efficacy or convenience. The year is also set to bring multiple Phase III catalysts, along with a steady stream of proof-of-concept readouts.
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