Michael Woodhead, Associate Director at Consult Search,recently sat down with Kaiser Karamdad, a life sciences commercial strategy specialist with experience spanning consultancy, cell therapy biotech, and business development, to discuss the state of the life sciences market. In the first of four articles drawing on that conversation, they explore where the biotech cycle currently stands, and what it means for companies and talent navigating the road ahead.
The life sciences industry has always moved in cycles, but the last five years have felt particularly whiplash-inducing for the US market. For those of us working in biotech recruitment, the shift has been dramatic. Understanding where we are in the cycle matters enormously, whether you're a hiring manager building a team or a candidate weighing your next move.
From boom to bust (and back again)
Seven years ago, it was a genuinely extraordinary time to be recruiting in life sciences. Every company was receiving investment, candidates could name their price, and equity was standard across the board. It didn't feel like a bubble at the time, it just felt like the new normal.
Kaiser Karamdad, who spent four years at Cambridge Healthcare Research before joining Achilles Therapeutics as Chief of Staff to the CEO, saw the same thing from the commercial side. Teams were expanding, budgets for strategic planning were growing, and the future felt limitless.
Then COVID hit, and in a counterintuitive way, it turbocharged the boom rather than ending it. Savings accumulated, capital was cheap, and generalist investors who had previously steered clear of biotech suddenly piled in. The result was a wave of IPOs in 2020 and 2021 that, in hindsight, was unsustainable. Achilles Therapeutics was one of them, raising $300 million on NASDAQ in 2021.
What followed was predictable in retrospect. As Kaiser puts it:
"Post-COVID saw a significant reset and recorrection across the industry with consolidation."
Geopolitics, rising interest rates, and companies that had promised more than they could deliver all contributed to a sharp correction. The past four years have been defined by caution, consolidation, and a painful reset across the sector — a pattern felt as acutely on the NASDAQ biotech index as anywhere else.
So where does that leave us?
The honest answer would be ‘cautiously optimistic, but still fragile.’
We have seen M&A return, driven largely by big pharma companies staring down patent cliffs. When blockbuster drugs go generic, the revenue simply disappears, and acquiring promising assets is faster than building from scratch. The deals happening now tend to be in the single-digit billions, targeted acquisitions of specific assets rather than full company integrations.
Perhaps more significantly, the IPO is quietly making a comeback. After years when public markets were effectively closed to biotech, a flurry of IPOs this year has generated solid returns. It's not the free-for-all of 2021, but it's a genuine signal that the window is reopening for US-listed biotechs.
Entering a strategic acquisition era
One structural shift that's likely to outlast the current cycle is how biotechs are now built. As Kaiser observes:
"VCs are now setting up biotechs with acquisition as the main exit strategy rather than IPO, due to closed public markets over the past four to five years."
Companies are choosing indications that fit neatly into large pharma pipelines and structuring organizations with M&A readiness, rather than IPO preparation, as the benchmark.
That changes everything from how companies are staffed to what capabilities they keep in-house. It's a more pragmatic model, and frankly, probably a more sustainable one.
The asset classes attracting capital
For anyone trying to read where investment is heading, some clear themes are emerging. Oncology remains the dominant destination, with ADCs, bispecifics, and trispecific antibodies leading the charge. Obesity and cardiovascular disease, driven by the GLP-1 revolution, are transforming the landscape - with Eli Lilly's ascent the most visible example for US investors and talent alike.
Perhaps most interesting is the growing momentum in inflammation and autoimmune disease. The science around B-cell depletion is advancing quickly, with CAR-T and bispecific approaches showing promising early data in conditions like arthritis, lupus, and scleroderma. This is an area worth watching closely over the next five to ten years.
Navigating the biotech cycle means having the right people in place at the right time. If you're thinking about your hiring strategy for the year ahead and would like to talk it through, I'd love to help.
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Michael Woodhead Associate Director, Consult Search
Michael has been recruiting in the life sciences sector for seven years, specialising in building teams across biometrics, clinical development, research, and medical affairs. His focus spans senior individual contributors through to leadership level, with particular depth in biostatistics, statistical programming, and data management. Prior to life sciences, Michael spent five years recruiting across technical industries. He works with biotech, biopharma, and CRO clients across the Unites States and Europe.
Kaiser Karamdad Life Sciences Commercial Strategy Specialist
Kaiser holds a PhD from Imperial College London in synthetic biology and chemical biology, and has spent his career at the intersection of science and commercial strategy. He began at Cambridge Healthcare Research, supporting pharma and biotech clients on commercial planning and business development, before moving into industry as Chief of Staff to the CEO at Achilles Therapeutics - a cell therapy company that IPO'd on NASDAQ in 2021. Most recently, Kaiser served as BD Director at Quell Therapeutics, a CAR-Treg focused cell therapy company, where he led partnering strategy and commercial value proposition. He is currently exploring his next opportunity in business development and commercial leadership within the life sciences sector.