Eli Lilly and Co.’s buyout of Ventyx Biosciences Inc. for $1.2 billion at the start of the year brought to the forefront NLR family pyrin domain containing 3 (NLRP3) inhibitors, on which a handful of developers have been working – and research in the space continues to roll out, as with the paper published March 26 in Nature that delved into mechanisms that rev up the NLRP3 inflammasome.

Med-tech M&A activity surged in March 2026, with deal value reaching $23.66 billion, the highest monthly total since June 2022’s $36.27 billion and a sharp increase from $17.53 billion in February and $1.69 billion in January.

In what shakes out to be the largest follow-on stock offering in biopharma history, Revolution Medicines Inc., an oncology company that was the subject of buyout rumors earlier this year, priced 10.56 million shares to raise $1.5 billion just two days after wowing investors with top-line phase III data of its RAS inhibitor daraxonrasib in patients with metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.

Biopharma deal value totaled $18.05 billion in March 2026, a pullback from $30.01 billion recorded in February and $31.16 billion in January, but broadly in line with prior years. The March total exceeds March 2024 ($8.5 billion) and is comparable to March 2023 ($19.68 billion) and 2022 ($15.35 billion). For the first quarter (Q1) 2026, deal value increased 17% year over year to $79.22 billion, up from $67.6 billion in Q1 2025.

Abstracts released ahead of the American College of Cardiology meeting held in late March in New Orleans, along with the start of dosing near the end of January in Novartis AG’s phase IIb trial with siRNA therapy DII-235, also known as BW-20829, perked up the already-lively lipids/heart space.

More than four decades on from the approval of the first biologic drug, the industry has reached a tipping point, and biotech drugs now outnumber small molecules in the global R&D pipeline.

Total biopharma financings reached $22.82 billion in the first quarter (Q1) 2026, rising about 74% from $13.12 billion in Q1 2025 but declining 31% from $33.16 billion in Q4 2025. The strong start places 2026 well above the subdued levels seen from 2022 through 2025, though is still below the highs of $38.35 billion in Q1 2021 and $47.25 billion in Q1 2024. Overall, the data indicate a meaningful rebound in financing activity to begin 2026, following a more uneven 2025.