Each week we highlight five things affecting the life sciences industry. Here’s the latest.
London’s life sciences sector sees surge in VC investment
- The UK capital’s life sciences sector has secured approximately $2.1 billion in venture capital in 2025 so far, a roughly 60% jump year over year, reports UKTN.
- Around $1.1 billion of that funding has been invested in companies that use artificial intelligence in diagnostics, drug discovery or health tech.
FDA introduces a new “plausible mechanism pathway”
- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced a pathway that aims to accelerate approval of personalized therapies, allowing drugmakers to reuse platform data and prior safety evidence for similar bespoke treatments. This aims to reduce regulatory burdens and enable reimbursement for rare disease therapies.
- The approach targets conditions with clear genetic causes and could expand beyond rare diseases to broader applications. While welcomed for flexibility, experts caution about reliance on post-marketing data and stress the need for rigorous oversight, reports Endpoints News.
Medtech venture capital funding slowed in Q3
- Medtech funding for the third quarter dropped to $3 billion from $4.6 billion in Q2, marking the lowest quarterly level since late 2023. Despite this dip, the sector has raised $12 billion across 647 deals in the first nine months, keeping it on track to surpass 2024’s $14 billion total, according to Medtech Dive.
- Deal values are rising while volumes decline, as investors concentrate capital on later-stage companies with scalable models, leaving early-stage medtech firms, especially those without AI-driven solutions, facing reduced funding opportunities. Private equity shows similar trends, with $7.4 billion invested so far but uncertainty remains about beating last year’s record.
Direct-to-consumer (DTC) initiatives aim to cut drug prices
- Major pharmaceutical companies are offering steep discounts on select drugs. However, experts argue these programs mainly benefit uninsured or high-deductible patients and will have little impact on overall drug spending because most insured patients already pay less through traditional coverage.
- Biospace reports that analysts remain skeptical about broad effectiveness, noting that DTC discounts often target drugs with declining sales or robust insurance coverage, while high-cost specialty medicines are largely untouched. GLP-1 weight-loss drugs are the exception, as Most Favored Nation pricing deals could deliver meaningful savings for cash-paying patients in this booming market.
Older mice show unexpected cancer resistance
- A Stanford study found that aged mice develop significantly fewer and less aggressive lung tumors compared to younger mice, challenging the long-held belief that cancer risk increases with age. This mirrors trends seen in very elderly humans, where cancer incidence plateaus or declines.
- The research revealed that aging suppresses tumor initiation and growth, influences the impact of tumor-suppressor gene inactivation and leaves aging-related signatures in cancer cells. These findings highlight the need for cancer models that incorporate aging to improve treatment strategies, according to News Medical.
For more insights in life sciences, check out RSM’s industry outlook.
