Investor Relations, Clinical Operations, and the Future of Biotech Financing

Key Insight: As biotech funding evolves and clinical complexity intensifies, strategically aligning investor relations with clinical operations enables unified, compelling narratives that drive both capital and credibility. 

Biotech Funding Landscape 2025

$28B Raised But Higher Barriers to Entry 

Biotech is experiencing a fundamental shift in how capital flows and where investors place their bets. The numbers show biotech startups raised $28.1 billion in venture capital in 2024, up 33% from 2023.¹ But this recovery comes with the caveat that the median biotech venture round now hovers around $93-100 million, continuing the "megaround" trend that began in 2024.² Fewer deals, larger checks, higher bars for entry. 

Tellingly, investors now see mid- and small-cap pharma & biotech as offering the greatest opportunity in 2025, while the IPO market remains stubbornly challenging. The industry experienced a record peak with over 100 biotech IPOs in 2021, but this activity collapsed, with only 19 to 24 total biotech IPOs completed in all of 2023, marking a nearly 80% reduction in access to public capital.³

This means that companies must stay private longer, raise more capital in each round, and prove more value before accessing public markets.

Why 90% of Biotech Companies Struggle with Investor Communications

Behind the funding dynamics lies the deeper challenge of remaining focused on the innovative science while being pragmatic about proving it in the clinical setting. 

Overall drug development success rates stand at just 7.9%, dropping to 5.3% for oncology.⁴ With most biotech companies consuming cash and needing to return to capital markets to raise money to fund the next stage of their development pipeline, every interaction with investors intensifies. 

Yet companies translating complex science into investor-friendly language while managing expectations around financial strategy, can result in fragmented narratives, missed opportunities, and valuations that fail to capture true potential. 

How can integrated teams maintain visibility into cutting-edge science while accelerating toward results that matter? 

5 Ways Integrated Clinical Operations and IR Drive Capital Efficiency

Forward-thinking leaders are recognizing that the solution is strategic integration of investor relations with effective clinical operations. 

1. Real-Time Intelligence Flows Both Ways

Investors want companies to anchor outreach around clear milestones or inflection points. Integrated IR-clinical teams can translate trial progress, endpoint achievements, and regulatory interactions into investor-relevant insights in real-time, while simultaneously feeding investor sentiment and competitive intelligence back to clinical teams to inform trial strategy and resource allocation.

2. Proof Points Replace Promises

Investors are now "judging companies much more sharply and quantitatively about their demonstrable progress rather than the promise of progress".⁵ When clinical operations and IR work in lockstep, data readouts become compelling investment narratives, trial milestones drive strategic fundraising timing, and regulatory achievements translate immediately into market confidence.

3. Crisis Communication Becomes Competitive Advantage

Clinical trials rarely proceed as planned. Companies with integrated IR-clinical operations can respond to adverse events, trial modifications, or regulatory feedback with coordinated, transparent communication that maintains investor confidence rather than triggering panic selling.

4. Capital Efficiency Through Strategic Sequencing

Smart biotech IR strategy involves planning to conduct financing around the achievement of an anticipated milestone. Integrated teams can align clinical timelines with capital needs, sequence data releases with fundraising windows, and ensure that every trial milestone maximizes both scientific and financial value.

5. Market Access Begins in Phase I

Forward-thinking companies, like Precision Medicine Group, are now integrated from molecule to market, providing valuable insights and support in developing market access strategies. This can range from conducting market research, assessing competitive landscapes, and guiding pricing to reimbursement strategies. Integrating these commercial insights with clinical design and investor messaging enables coherent narratives that extend from lab bench to market launch. This approach helps answer the two questions that underlie funding decisions: Will the drugs work? And will they sell? 

The $30 Billion Proof Point: How Integrated IR-Clinical Teams Secured 8-Figure Funding 

At Precision, we've witnessed this integration thesis play out in real time. Our integrated investor relations and clinical operations approach has helped biotech sponsors secure over $33 billion in capital and supported more than $55 billion in M&A transactions since 2020,⁶ precisely because we don't treat clinical operations and investor communications as separate disciplines.

When clinical data flows seamlessly into investor narratives, when regulatory interactions inform capital strategy, and when market access considerations shape both trial design and financial messaging, the result is credibility that translates directly into capital efficiency.

The biotech sector is showing signs of a meaningful shift toward profitability, operational maturity, and renewed investor interest. While the IPO window has remained largely closed since 2021, a growing cohort of venture-backed companies is preparing for public offerings once conditions improve.

Unlike the speculative IPO wave of the past, today’s pipeline is more data-driven and commercially viable, setting the stage for a more sustainable market re-entry. Still, the largest fundraising rounds in 2024 were often led by former Big Pharma executives with proven track records.⁷ For emerging companies without marquee leadership, operational excellence and strategic communication are becoming the key differentiators.

Turning early milestones into value inflection points 

At Precision, we know the earliest phases of development set the tone for everything that follows, from scientific success to investor confidence. With capabilities spanning biomarker-driven trial design, adaptive methodologies, and seamless integration with specialty labs, we give sponsors a clearer, faster path from concept to clinic. 

But early-phase execution alone isn't enough. Our integrated Investor Relations and External Communications (IREC) team translates the science into narratives that resonate with investors, analysts, and strategic partners.  

The dual strength for deep clinical execution paired with capital markets fluency enables sponsors to transform milestones into momentum, driving both funding and strategic growth.

Future of CRO Selection: Why $139B Market Demands Integrated IR Capabilities 

It is estimated that nearly three out of every four clinical trials are conducted by contracted CROs and the global CRO market is projected to reach approximately $130 billion by 2029 (or $127 billion by 2030).⁸ This makes it crucial to work with partners that understand the strategic interconnection between clinical excellence and capital efficiency. The biotechs that recognize this integration imperative today will be the ones writing the success stories that define tomorrow's industry landscape. 

Explore how integrated IR-clinical operations can accelerate your path to market and capital efficiency.

References

1. VC Mapping. BioTech Investors & Venture Capital Firms in 2025. Published April 21, 2025. Accessed October 9, 2025. https://vc-mapping.gilion.com/venture-capital-firms/biotech-investors 
2. BioPharma Dive. Biotech 'megarounds' hold steady as startups, VCs wait on IPOs. Published April 3, 2025. Accessed October 9, 2025. https://www.biopharmadive.com/news/venture-capital-biotech-q1-2025-megarounds/744247/ 
3. Ritter JR. Initial Public Offerings: Life Science (Biotech and Pharma) IPOs Through 2024. University of Florida. Updated February 20, 2025. Accessed October 9, 2025. https://site.warrington.ufl.edu/ritter/files/IPOs-LifeScience.pdf 
4. BIO, Informa Pharma Intelligence, QLS Advisors. Clinical Development Success Rates 2011–2020. Published 2021.
5. BioPharma Dive. Newly Optimistic, Biotech Investors Weigh Lessons of Sector's Downturn. Published January 11, 2024. Accessed October 9, 2025. https://www.biopharmadive.com/news/biotech-startups-venture-capital-funding-outlook-2024/704289/
6. Data on File. Precision Medicine Group. 2025.
7. BioSpace. 2024’s Top 7 VC Raises in Biotech. Published January 15, 2025. Accessed October 9, 2025. https://www.biospace.com/business/2024s-top-7-vc-raises-in-biotech 
8. MarketsandMarkets. Contract Research Organization Services Market Worth $129.8 Billion. Published January 22, 2024. Accessed October 9, 2025. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/contract-research-organization-services-market--cro-services-market-worth-129-8-billion--marketsandmarkets-302040466.html