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Thursday, July 9, 2026
5 largest health VC rounds of H1 2026
Early-stage financing rounds are on track to hit their lowest dollar value in years as funders continue to eschew risky investments, experts told BioSpace.
In the first half of 2026, the major theme across biopharma is what Mike Nelson calls “selective recovery.”
There has been a notable rebound in capital markets, said the partner at law firm Cooley, as demonstrated by the uptick in financing volume. Initial public offerings have also surged. According to BioSpace’s tally, 18 biotechs have gone public since the start of the year, compared with only eight for the whole of 2025.
“But investment remains concentrated in later-stage, de-risked assets with near-term clinical catalysts over early-stage companies with less tested therapies,” Nelson said in an email interview. In the first quarter, he noted, later-stage rounds totaled $4.5 billion over 51 deals, “the highest Q1 value in recent years.”
Meanwhile, early-stage financing—covering seed and series A efforts—is “on pace for its lowest annual count since before the pandemic,” Nelson said.
Ben Zercher, senior biotech and pharma analyst at PitchBook, agrees. He concedes that “there were certainly some notable early-stage rounds in the first half of 2026,” with some series A and series B rounds exceeding $100 million. Still, “the series label doesn’t always capture the full picture.”
In fact, Zercher added, PitchBook’s analysis shows that “many of these series A and B megarounds are being raised by companies founded five or more years ago with relatively mature operations and, in some cases, clinical-stage programs.”
Such is the case with Isomorphic Labs, the Alphabet-backed AI startup that in May bagged the industry’s second-biggest raise ever, taking home $2.1 billion in its series B round. Isomorphic was founded in 2021 but hasn’t yet disclosed clinical candidates.
Megarounds like this pull the overall VC funding numbers for H1 2026 up, Robert Stanislaro, senior managing director at FTI Consulting, told BioSpace over email.
“Investors will write early checks when the science is unusually strong, the syndicate is high-quality, or the path to a near-term catalyst is credible,” Stanislaro said. “Investors are recalibrating their measures of confidence, not expanding their tolerance for risk.”
In that vein, however, there are clear winners in H1 2026. Biologics and antibodies “have attracted notable investor interest,” as have DNA- and RNA-focused therapies, according to Stanislaro. “This trend reflects a bigger picture: capital hasn’t dried up, but it has become far more discerning about where it goes.”
Here, BioSpace picks apart that flow of VC money, looking at the five biggest raises of H1 2026.
Isomorphic Labs
Date: May 12
Round: Series B
Raise: $2.1 billion
Topping the fundraising leaderboards this year—and likely for many years to come—is Isomorphic Labs, a life sciences venture by Alphabet, the tech giant behind Google.
In May, the London-based biotech brought in an eye-watering $2.1 billion in series B money, the “second largest biotech round of all time,” PitchBook’s Zercher told BioSpace at the time. The biggest biotech fundraise ever belongs to Altos Labs, which launched in January 2022 with $3 billion.
What makes Isomorphic’s feat all the more impressive is that it has yet to disclose a drug candidate. Much of the buzz around the biotech is driven by its impressive tech pedigree—what Zercher called the “DeepMind halo,” referring to Google’s AI agent—and investors’ rapidly growing enthusiasm for the integration of AI in drug development.
“One of the defining themes of H1 2026 has been investor preference for platform technologies over single-asset companies,” Sharad Chandra Vinayak, assistant project manager for Pharma Insights at DelveInsight, told BioSpace in an email.
Isomorphic is the best example of this theme, he continued, and the biotech’s massive “landmark” raise “reflects growing conviction that AI-enabled drug discovery can fundamentally improve pharmaceutical R&D productivity, accelerate development timelines, and increase the probability of success.”
Isomorphic’s platform is built around the AlphaFold family of models, designed to accurately predict the structures of DNA, RNA and protein molecules, as well as their interactions. AlphaFold—which Isomorphic in May 2024 said “is the most accurate tool in the world for predicting how proteins interact with other molecules throughout the cell”—won a 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Isomorphic is leveraging this platform to develop a pipeline “focused in oncology and immunology,” according to its website, though as of writing, the company has yet to name any clinical candidates. The series B could help fill this gap, with Isomorphic earmarking the money for “accelerating and expanding its pipeline of therapeutic programs toward the clinic,” as well as continuing to develop its drug design technology.
NewLimit
Date: June 3
Round: Series C
Raise: $435 million
Far behind Isomorphic is the California startup NewLimit, which is working on “reprogramming” the epigenome—the collection of chemical modifications that modulate gene expression without directly altering the DNA sequence itself—to tackle aging.
Early last month, the biotech brought in $435 million in series C money, which will go toward its pipeline of medicines that “restore youthful function in old cells,” according to a company blog at the time. Like Isomorphic, NewLimit has yet to reach the clinic, though it is not far off.
NewLimit’s lead asset is NLMT1001, an mRNA-based therapeutic designed to turn back the clock on old liver cells, restoring youthful function to the organ, according to the company’s website. The company plans to start clinical trials next year. NewLimit is also working on a few other programs, all of which are in the very early stages of development.
Another point of similarity with Isomorphic, which also potentially explains investors’ enthusiasm for NewLimit, is its heavy reliance on AI for drug design. The California company has developed a proprietary model called Ambrosia, which “builds atop foundation models of nature’s languages and human languages” to design therapies that can counter aging in cells, according to the NewLimit website.
Beeline Medicines
Date: April 15
Round: Series A
Raise: $426.3 million
In the first half of the year, immunology also emerged as “one of the fastest-growing areas of investment,” DelveInsight’s Vinayak told BioSpace.
“Advances in disease biology, biomarker identification, and patient stratification are enabling more targeted approaches to autoimmune, inflammatory, and fibrotic diseases,” he explained.
Riding this tailwind is Beeline Medicines, which emerged from stealth in April with $300 million in starting funds thanks to Bain Capital and five immuno assets from Bristol Myers Squibb. Leading the startup’s portfolio is afimetoran, a small-molecule inhibitor of TLR7 and TLR8, which are endosomal receptors that help drive the inflammatory response.
On the last day of June, Beeline added $126.3 million to the series A haul with fresh infusions from Bain, BMS and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.
By selectively blocking these proteins, afimetoran suppresses the inflammation cascade and dampens the activation of immune cells, according to Beeline’s website. Afimetoran is being developed for systemic (SLE) and cutaneous (CLE) lupus erythematosus. Also on Beeline’s pipeline is the fusion protein BLN-326, which combines IL-2 and CD25 to “unlock the therapeutic potential of regulatory T cell biology,” the biotech said. The asset is being tested for CLE, SLE and atopic dermatitis.
Much of Beeline’s series A has been earmarked for afimetoran. Still, CEO Saqib Islam in April said any leftover money would go toward “several additional clinical trials” over the next 12 months.
Parabilis Medicines
Date: January 8
Round: Series F
Raise: $305 million
One of the earliest signs of some market recovery this year came from Parabilis Medicines, which in early January bagged $305 million in a rare series F raise. Half a year later, the haul remains among 2026’s largest.
Parabilis’ lead asset is zolucatetide, an investigational peptide therapy produced through the biotech’s Helicon platform, which uses AI- and physics-based modeling to design drug candidates that have the target precision of antibodies while still being able to permeate cells like small molecules.
Zolucatetide is designed to target and directly inhibit the β-catenin:T-cell factor transcription complex, a “key downstream node” in central cancer cascades, according to Parabilis’ website.
Parabilis’ raise, Vinayak told BioSpace, underscores how cancer “remains the largest recipient of venture investment,” which he explained is driven largely by an attractive market opportunity, continuous scientific innovation in the space and established regulatory pathways.
The series F proceeds, Parabilis said in January, will help push the asset into registrational development for desmoid tumors, as well as continued evaluation in other cancers, such as hepatocellular carcinoma and colorectal cancer. Some of the money was also funneled toward further building out Parabilis’ pipeline, with a focus on disease targets that had long been considered “undruggable.”
Last month, Parabilis got a massive vote of confidence for its Helicon technology with a history-making initial public offering. Parabilis brought in $670 million in proceeds, the biggest IPO in biopharma history, topping Kailera Therapeutics’ previous record raise just over a month earlier of $625 million.
Like the series F money, Parabilis will put much of the IPO haul behind zolucatetide, according to regulatory filings submitted in the leadup to the public debut. The biotech now trades on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol PBLS.
Corxel Pharmaceuticals
Date: January 23
Round: Series D1
Raise: $287 million
Riding the cresting weight-loss wave is Corxel Pharmaceuticals. In late January, the New Jersey biotech added $287 million in series D1 money—funds to help bankroll the development of lead asset CX11.
“The commercial success of obesity and diabetes therapies has fundamentally reshaped investor perceptions of metabolic disease markets,” Vinayak said in an email, noting that Corxel is emblematic of this trend.
Designed to be taken as a daily pill, CX11 is a small-molecule drug that activates the GLP-1 receptor—currently the most dominant target for obesity medications. This class of drugs has been shown to improve blood sugar control, suppress appetite and, crucially, help patients lose weight.
In December 2024, Corxel entered the GLP-1 arena with the acquisition of ex-China rights to CX11 from Shanghai-based Vincentage. Last month, the New Jersey biotech posted Phase 2 data for CX11 touting weight reduction of up to 11.5% at 36 weeks, with no signs of plateauing.
Corxel’s series B will help push CX11 through the Phase 2 study in obesity, as well as launch a mid-stage study in type 2 diabetes mellitus, the company said in January. The money will also fund Corxel’s initial preparations for late-stage development.
More broadly, the hefty placement in Corxel points to the cardiometabolic sector’s “significant commercial potential,” Vinayak said, “and the expectation that demand for effective obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular therapies will remain a major growth driver for the biopharma industry.”
https://www.biospace.com/business/5-largest-vc-rounds-of-h1-2026
FDA freezes CRL trove as ‘radical transparency’ push hits speedbump
An unnamed pharma filed a citizen petition in April seeking reforms to the way the FDA publicly releases rejection letters, alleging that the policy “contravenes decades of agency practice.”
The FDA will temporarily stop publicly releasing rejection letters amid a citizen petition challenging the legality of the effort.
The regulator “is evaluating the process and potential next steps,” a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services told Fierce Biotech, which reported the news on Wednesday, noting that the pause started in April. BioSpace has reached out to the department for independent confirmation and for more details.
The pause deals a blow to the agency’s campaign of “radical transparency” in an effort to give the public “significantly greater insight into the FDA’s decision-making,” according to a July 2025 news release announcing the regulator’s publication of the rejection letters. The initial dump included more than 200 CRLs from the previous decade, spanning applications for novel drugs, biosimilars, injection devices and more.
A few months later, in September that year, the FDA released an additional cache of the letters and promised that it would soon start publishing them “promptly after they are issued to sponsors.”
Despite the letters being heavily redacted, analysts and investors for the most part lauded the measure, telling BioSpace in April that making the rejection letters publicly available has changed the way companies communicate these regulatory setbacks.
“The reception from the investment community has been unanimously positive,” TD Cowen’s Ritu Baral said at the time, noting that the trove “brings a level of accountability and professionalism to a sector that is far from mature.”
“There are smaller companies with less experienced management teams, and this gives communication some guardrails,” Baral said.
Not everyone has been pleased with the policy, however. Eva Temkin, formerly in the FDA’s Chief Counsel’s office and Office of New Drugs, and now a partner at Arnold & Porter, called the move a “shock-and-awe policy” during a panel at the BIO International Convention last month.
Temkin in particular took issue with how there had been little public consultation about the FDA’s decision to publish the CRLs—ironic given that the measure is meant to increase regulatory transparency: “We’re going to force transparency, but we’re going to do it without transparent process,” she said.
In April, an unnamed pharmaceutical company filed a citizen petition with the agency, seeking reforms to the way the FDA releases these rejection letters. In particular, the petitioner wants the FDA to “first inform the manufacturer” that it intends to make the letter public and give the drug sponsor 10 days to contest the move.
“As a legal and policy matter, FDA should immediately cease publishing [CRLs],” the petition read, noting that the initiative itself is “unlawful” and “contravenes decades of agency practice with no adequate explanation.”
The FDA is required to respond to the petition within 180 days of receipt, which would be Oct. 17. No such response has yet been posted.
https://www.biospace.com/fda/fda-freezes-crl-trove-as-radical-transparency-push-hits-speedbump
GSK abandons Alector after back-to-back neuro stumbles
GSK and Alector first partnered in 2021 to advance two antibodies for neurodegenerative diseases. Both assets have since failed to show significant clinical benefit.
GSK is officially walking away from Alector after the partners’ neurodegenerative alliance failed to deliver decisive clinical wins.
The pharma informed Alector of the termination on July 6, which will take effect on Jan. 2, 2027, according to a securities disclosure from the biotech posted Wednesday. Alector also said it had “repaid in full” and subsequently terminated a 2024 loan and securities agreement with Hercules Capital. That deal included a $10 million initial tranche; Alector repaid $10.43 million, including interest.
GSK and Alector first joined hands in July 2021, with the pharma fronting $700 million to advance a pair of antibody therapies for neurodegenerative conditions. GSK at the time put an additional $1.5 billion on the line in R&D, regulatory and commercialization milestones—though much of that remains unpaid.
In October 2025, the first candidate under the collaboration, a progranulin modulator called latozinemab, failed to significantly slow disease progression in a Phase 3 study of frontotemporal dementia. While the therapeutic antibody exerted a “significant effect” on levels of progranulin, a key disease biomarker, the asset missed key secondary endpoints, including magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) measures, GSK and Alector said at the time.
The late-stage stumble prompted the companies to pull the plug on latozinemab and pushed Alector to downsize by 49% in a strategic business review, laying off around 116 employees, according to a BioSpace estimate.
Then, in April, GSK and Alector ran into another clinical roadblock when the second alliance asset—an antibody called nivisnebart—failed to show any sign of significant efficacy in a Phase 2 Alzheimer’s disease trial. An independent data board concluded that pushing through with the study would be futile, leaving the companies with little choice but to discontinue the trial.
The partners at the time did not say whether they would also scrap nivisnebart, but with the contract termination this week, the asset will no longer be GSK’s responsibility. Alector also no longer lists the candidate on its pipeline page.
Neuro has been giving Alector a difficult time. In November 2024, before the back-to-back stumbles for the GSK-partnered drugs, the biotech reported a mid-stage flop in Alzheimer’s disease with an AbbVie-allied antibody called AL002 failing to slow clinical progression. That setback triggered a 17% layoff for Alector.
As of March 31, Alector had $354.6 million in cash, cash equivalents and investments, enough to sustain its runway into the second half of 2027.
https://www.biospace.com/business/gsk-abandons-alector-after-back-to-back-neuro-stumbles
Cancer, rare disease dominate FDA approvals in H1 2026 as AstraZeneca, J&J clean up
The FDA greenlit 26 novel therapies in the first half of 2026, including four for cancer and six for orphan indications. Meanwhile, AstraZeneca and Johnson and Johnson took home a combined 11 of the agency’s 79 total approvals, including supplemental nods.
Amid unprecedented leadership uncertainty, workforce attrition and myriad controversial decisions, the FDA approved 26 novel drugs in the first half of 2026—seven more than its H1 2025 total.
Among total approvals—novel therapies and label expansions included—the oncology space led the way, followed by therapies for rare diseases and inflammatory and immunological (I&I) indications. While most of the FDA’s cancer nods were for label expansions, the agency did greenlight four new medicines. Corcept Therapeutics,BeOne Medicines, AbbVie and partners Pfizer and Arvinas notched approvals in across multiple cancers.
The rare disease space, meanwhile, celebrated several firsts in H1. Denali Therapeutics’ Avlayah was approved in March as the first treatment for Hunter syndrome to address the disease’s neurological complications, and Regeneron’s gene therapy Otarmeni became the first treatment to target an underlying cause of deafness. It is also Regeneron’s first gene therapy to reach the market.
AstraZeneca also celebrated a successful first half with six FDA greenlights, including for TROP2-directed antibody drug conjugate Datroway in first-line metastatic triple-negative breast cancer. Johnson & Johnson, meanwhile, received happy news from the regulator five times from January to June, including for Icotyde, a daily peptide pill for plaque psoriasis co-developed with Protagonist Therapeutics.
On the mechanistic front, small molecules led the way in terms of total FDA approvals, followed by antibodies then peptides.
"Deepening Dark Trend" Emerges On Hormuz As Ship Traffic Slows
The US military has struck Iranian targets for a second straight day, while Tehran has responded with ballistic missile and drone attacks targeting Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and even faraway Jordan. While our overnight wrap focused on the latest war developments, the focus here is what energy traders are watching most closely: vessel traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.
Bloomberg cites new shipping data showing that the Hormuz chokepoint slowed to a near standstill on Thursday.
More color from the report:
Among larger vessels, only a US-sanctioned supertanker heading out of the Persian Gulf was seen in the strait, alongside an Iranian-flagged container ship. It's possible that some vessels may be crossing with their transponders turned off, however.
The slowdown marks a sharp reversal from the partial recovery that followed the mid-June interim US-Iran peace deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
Commodity-vessel transits averaged 34 a day over the past three weeks and peaked at 59 on June 24, according to Kpler data. That compares with just 14 crossings Wednesday, the lowest since the deal and near wartime levels.
Maritime research firm Windward also commented on the Hormuz slowdown:
Earlier, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy Command stated that it has taken control of managing security and vessel routing through the Hormuz chokepoint.
Here's the translated statement:
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy Command
In the name of God, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful.
Peace be upon the insightful and honorable nation, whose astonishing presence and tens-of-millions-strong funeral processions for their martyred leader in Iran and Iraq showed that this is the era of the end of the bullying of powers, and the century of the triumph of nations' will.
And peace be upon the brave warriors of Islam, who, with their crushing response to the aggressions of the child-killing American army, proved that the outcome of battle is determined not by the abundance of weapons, but by the power of faith.
These warriors, by stabilizing management of the Strait of Hormuz, establishing its security over the past two weeks, and gradually reopening it, have increased passage capacity to about 50% of prewar traffic. They are also increasing the transit capacity of vessels that, while observing the security regulations with discipline, obtain permission from the IRGC Navy to pass through the routes designated by the Islamic Republic.
Once again, we declare that foreigners have no stake in this land or in the Strait of Hormuz. The adventurism of the terrorist American army and its interference in determining traffic routes will not only bring our crushing response, but will also seriously disrupt the process of gradual reopening and seriously endanger the interests of countries that benefit from the Strait of Hormuz.
On Tuesday, following three separate Iranian attacks on commercial vessels, the Joint Maritime Information Center raised the threat level of the Hormuz chokepoint to "severe."
The unwinding of diplomatic efforts will complicate the normalization process of reopening the Hormuz.
Goldman analyst Chris Hussey commented on this:
Hormuz recovery stalls. Oil has rebounded as renewed fighting around the Strait of Hormuz has interrupted the post-reopening recovery in Persian Gulf flows, while refined products markets remain even tighter than crude, writes Yulia Grigsby in "Oil Tracker: Negative Supply News From Gulf and Russia." Persian Gulf oil flows initially recovered to above 80% of pre-war levels after reopening, but recent tanker attacks pushed them back to the low-70% range, with exports through Hormuz falling from about 10 mb/d to 8.3 mb/d on a 7-day average basis. This supports our view that the key constraint is now Iran's willingness to allow flows, not tanker capacity.
Polymarket:
Brent crude futures were trading around $79 a barrel early Thursday, while WTI hovered near $74, signaling that traders were pricing in renewed geopolitical war risk premium as Hormuz vessel traffic slowed and the US-Iran conflict flared up.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/deepening-dark-trend-emerges-hormuz-ship-traffic-slows
Tennessee Congressman Demands FBI Unseal Everything On Seth Rich
by José Niño via Headline USA,
Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn, has thrown a fresh spotlight on one of Washington’s most stubborn cold cases.
On July 7, 2026, the Tennessee Republican posted on X that he had formally pressed FBI Director Kash Patel to surrender every document the bureau holds on the 2016 killing of DNC staffer Seth Rich.
“I have called for @FBIDirectorKash to release all records related to the death of Seth Rich,” Burchett wrote.
His press office added, “Today, I sent a letter to FBI Director Kash Patel asking for the release of all records related to the death of Seth Rich. The American people deserve answers.”
The letter itself, dated on Tuesday, opens plainly.
“I write to request the release of all Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) records related to the death of Seth Rich,” Burchett states.
He then leans on the White House, urging, “Given the Administration’s commitment to transparency, I strongly urge the full release of these records, as permitted by law.”
Rich, 27, was shot and killed while walking home in Washington during the early morning hours of July 10, 2016.
Police treated the case as a botched robbery, and it stays unsolved.
Rich’s death later fueled a viral theory that he leaked DNC emails to WikiLeaks and was silenced for it.
Burchett’s demand follows years of FOIA warfare waged by attorney Ty Clevenger on behalf of plaintiff Brian Huddleston. The FBI first claimed it held no relevant files, then conceded it possessed more than 20,000 pages of potentially relevant material, Rich’s work laptop, and an image of his personal one.
According to Radar, this week Clevenger said a government lawyer told him he would soon receive confirmation that several hundred more Rich pages had surfaced inside a previously concealed room at FBI headquarters—the same unmapped SCIF where “burn bags” of Russia-probe files marked for destruction were reportedly found.
That connection remains Clevenger’s account. The FBI has not confirmed it, and the separate burn-bags report never established that Rich records were among those files.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/tennessee-congressman-demands-fbi-unseal-everything-seth-rich
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