Today, we're thrilled to have Tim Opler, a leading voice in biotech investment banking. Tim's career spans academia, Credit Suisse, and co-founding Torreya Partners, which Stifel acquired in 2023. As Managing Director in Stifel's Global Healthcare Group, he's advised on over 150 deals totaling more than $100 billion, shaping major M&A, licensing, and financings in life sciences.

Tim is renowned for his insightful Biopharma Market Updates, and in this episode, we'll dive into his December 2025 edition, where he outlines five transformative trends set to drive biopharma for the next decade: M&A booms, giant markets like obesity and aging drugs, China's rising innovation, AI's reshape of healthcare, and incredible scientific advances.

01:22 - Meet Tim Opler

03:12 - Stifel and the Biopharma Market Updates

05:50 - Trend 1: M&A Booms

10:06 - Trend 2: Giant Markets

17:05 - Trend 3: China's Innovation

22:29 - Trend 4: AI Reshaping Healthcare

28:42 - Trend 5: Incredible Science

34:18 - Looking forward

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To dive deeper into the topic:

• 10 biotech companies in China you should know about
• When AI isn’t enough: How physics is shaping the next wave of drug discovery
• JPM 2026: what’s the outlook like this year?

Today I’m joined by not one, not two, but three guests with their takes on the biotech year ahead. In December we tasked Labiotech journalists Jules Adam, Roohi Peter, and Willow Shah-Neville with the task of identifying the five biotech players that they thought would be the ones to watch in 2026. Now you can read that article at Labiotech-dot-EU, and we’ve linked it in the show notes here in your podcast player, too, but on today’s episode I’m joined by Jules, Roohi, and Willow who explain a little more about the companies that caught their eye and what might be expected of those companies in the year ahead.

15 companies, three journalists, all in one special podcast as we uncover the companies to watch in 2026.

1:18 Meet Jules Adam

2:30 Abivax

4:04 AAVantgarde Bio

6:10 Isotope Technologies Munich (ITM)

8:16 MaaT Pharma

9:55 Novo Nordisk

13:15 Meet Willow Shah-Neville

14:29 Kardigan

18:23 Braveheart Bio

21:16 Beam Therapeutics

24:34 MindMed

27:39 Kailera Therapeutics

32:36 Meet Roohi Peter

33:30 Aspen Neuroscience

34:45 Reunion Neuroscience

36:14 MapLight Therapeutiucs

37:41 Hope Medicine

38:59 Regenxbio

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To dive deeper into the topic:

• Keep an eye on these 15 biotech companies in 2026
• Biotech in 2025: A retrospective
• Eight of the biggest immunology and inflammation (I&I) deals in 2025

Welcome to our first episode for 2026.

Today, we're joined by Hakan Goker, Managing Director at M Ventures, the strategic corporate venture capital arm of Merck KGaA. With over two decades in biotech investing, Hakan has driven transformative deals in oncology, autoimmune diseases, and beyond, including standout 2025 investments like FoRx Therapeutics and portfolio milestones such as Artios' FDA Fast Track designation.

As we kick off 2026 at Beyond Biotech, Hakan shares insights on corporate VC advantages, emerging therapeutic priorities, and the industry's evolving landscape amid rising M&A and AI innovation.

1:10 Meet Hakan Goka

4:37 About M Ventures and pharma CVC

8:14 Sourcing innovative biotechs

12:52 How M Ventures works with Merck KGaA

16:54 M Ventures in 2025

24:46 Areas to watch in the new year

29:19 Looking forward to 2026

32:20 The next big thing in biotech?

33:08 Advice for biotechs pitching CVC

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To dive deeper into the topic:

• The ABC of biotech startup funding
• Seven genome sequencing companies to look out for
• Labiotech's 2025 biotech funding tracker

Welcome to our final episode for 2025. We’re taking a little break for the holidays but we’ll be back again on Friday 9th of January to kick off our year with the Managing Director of Merck KGaA’s M Ventures, Hakan Goker.

Today, though, I’m joined by Ester in t’Groen of Johnson & Johnson.

Fresh off the American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting in Orlando, where J&J presented over 60 abstracts, Ester shares insights into the company's portfolio and the advances that the company has made over recent years in the hematology space.

She walks us through the real-world evidence for some pretty significant results from the thousands of patients in their clinical trials, and explain what's next for J&J in hematology in 2026—including some exciting readouts.

01:14 - Meet Ester in t'Groen

02:37 - Winning the Kilmer Medal

06:32 - J&J's key focus areas

07:32 - The hematology portfolio

19:07 - All about ASH 2025

23:49 - The MajesTEC-3 data

27:43 - The value of real-world datasets

32:06 - Looking forward into 2026

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To dive deeper into the topic:

• Blood Cancer Awareness Month: What biotech holds in store
• 10 oncology deals in 2025 spotlight where industry leaders are betting big
• T cell engagers: A promising, fast-growing field for cancer and autoimmune disease treatments

In this episode we sit down with Martin Beck, Senior Vice President and Head of the Inflammation Business Unit at Boehringer Ingelheim. Martin grew up just down the road from the company’s headquarters in Germany, joined as a scholarship student more than 20 years ago, and never really left – and you’ll hear why he still loves it.

We spend most of the episode focused on a disease that doesn’t get nearly enough attention: idiopathic and progressive pulmonary fibrosis. These are rare, fatal lung-scarring conditions that kill faster than many cancers, yet patients often shrug off the first symptoms as “just aging.”

Martin walks us through why half the people on today’s treatments stop taking them, how BI just brought the first new medicine in over a decade to the U.S. market, and why an AI tool that spots microscopic changes on lung scans might finally help doctors diagnose and treat these patients’ years earlier.

01:24 Meet Martin Beck

04:21 About Boehringer Ingelheim

07:12 Understanding idiopathic & progressive pulmonary fibrosis

10:16 Current treatments & high discontinuation rates

12:25 BI’s long-term investment in PF

16:02 eLung AI tool for earlier diagnosis

22:16 A new oral PDE4B inhibitor

28:13 Key data highlights from the recent ERS congress

30:31 FDA approval & global rollout plans

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To dive deeper into the topic:

• Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis: Refoxy, Boehringer, Insilico, and more on the hunt for curative treatments
• Eight respiratory disease companies advancing innovative therapies in 2025
• BI: Life with pulmonary fibrosis

Cancer is one of the biggest health challenges worldwide. While progress has been made, millions of patients are still in need of new treatment options that better address the complexities of their disease.

BeOne Medicines is creating the world’s next-generation cancer treatments with relentless innovation, aiming to deliver therapies to more people around the globe. This week, I'm sitting down with Mark Lanasa, Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer, Solid Tumors, at BeOne Medicines, to learn more about how their novel cancer models and unique in-house R&D approach is pushing them closer to cracking the cancer code.

This episode is sponsored by BeOne Medicines.

01:06 Meet Mark Lanasa

04:56 Cancer as a differentiated and adaptative disease

07:35 BeOne’s approach to cancer research and development

10:30 Accelerating cancer research by bringing it all in-house

15:24 Making progress and signs of success

17:41 Exciting investigational stage programs

23:51 The advantage of hierarchical thinking in R&D

28:13 Keep up with new research from BeOne

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To dive deeper into the topic:

• How can treatment strategies evolve to address the challenges in chronic lymphocytic leukemia?

Daiichi Sankyo has been pioneering ADCs since 2010, with a pipeline targeting over 30 indications and potentially reaching 400,000 patients.

In today’s episode I’m joined by Dr. Markus Kosch, Head of the EU Oncology Business Division at Daiichi Sankyo. A physician by training with a deep academic background in oncology, Markus has spent over two decades advancing cancer care, from clinical practice to leadership roles shaping strategy across Europe and Canada. Since joining Daiichi Sankyo in 2021, he has been at the forefront of one of the industry’s most ambitious ADC pipelines, overseeing more than 60 clinical trials across 24 countries and driving landmark approvals that are redefining treatment in breast, lung, and gastric cancers.

This week's episode is brought to you with the support of Kadans.

Looking for the perfect space to grow your Life Sciences company? Kadans Science Partner is Europe’s leading provider of cutting-edge lab and offices spaces, tailored to your needs. Kadans puts you at the centre of innovation, giving you the chance to connect with top researchers, universities, and investors through its international network. Here, you’ll join a vibrant community of innovators driving real change. Are you ready to take your research to the next level? Learn more at kadans.com – where innovation thrives.

01:45. Meet Markus Kosch

03:12. Clinical background shaping an industry role

04:46. Daiichi Sankyo’s 40-year oncology legacy

06:19. European investments and Munich hub

10:34. ADC platform strengths explained

14:20. Key ESMO 2025 trial data

Clarification: The reference to ‘TB01’ at 16:24 refers to the TROPION-Breast02 clinical trial, not TB01.

19:43. Managing risks and partnerships

23:35. Patient advocacy in trial design

33:59. Future of oncology and ADCs

Interested in being a sponsor of an episode of our podcast? Discover how you can get involved here!

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To dive deeper into the topic:

• 10 oncology deals in 2025 spotlight where industry leaders are betting big
• AstraZeneca and Daiichi Sankyo’s Enhertu recommended for approval
• Ten drugs to watch in 2025: will these therapies become blockbusters?

Two weeks ago, the biopharma industry gathered in Vienna, Austria, for BIO-Europe. Tens of thousands of one-on-one meetings were organized between innovators and out-licensors with top pharma companies and venture capitalists eager to partner and invest.

For the large pharma firms, it’s a chance to learn about new science and keep tabs on evolving assets. For smaller biotechs, though, it can be three-days of high-pressure networking where a lot is riding on making the right pitch to the right company at just the right time. Get it right, and you walk away with a clear path forward and the cash to fund it. But get unlucky and you might find yourself with few options in the New Year.

This year, we decided to follow one biotech heading into their first BIO-Europe partnering conference. We met with DISCO Pharma three times over the last month to follow their BIO-Europe journey:

• Before the event to learn about the science behind DISCO and understand what their goals were heading into BIO-Europe.
• At the event itself to talk about how the partnering meetings had been going and how the event had shaped up for DISCO.
• A week after BIO-Europe had closed, diving into the follow-up activities and learning about the next steps for this German biotech.

I hope you enjoy my conversations with Ajla Hrle, Chief Business Officer at DISCO, and this behind the scenes look at BIO-Europe from an innovator’s perspective.

02:25 Preparing for BIO-Europe

16:51 On the floor at BIO-Europe

22:23 Following up from BIO-Europe

Interested in being a sponsor of an episode of our podcast? Discover how you can get involved here!

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To dive deeper into the topic:

• BIO-Europe partnering: Australian biotech companies share their experiences
• Practical partnering at BIOSPAIN: on the ground with biotech innovators ready to take the next step
• Biotech in Vienna: a budding life science hub