There is broad agreement that psychiatric diagnoses in their current form are not reflective of any underlying biology, and that this is one of the things hampering psychiatric drug development. “We are still fully reliant on descriptive diagnoses that yield heterogeneous patient cohorts,” Steve Hyman told the audience at the European Congress of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP) Roadmap Meeting on Precision Psychiatry in Amsterdam in January.

The BioWorld Neurological Diseases Index (BNDI) finished 2025 up 6.33%, continuing the gains seen through November (closing up 2.64%), after reaching a low in July when it was down 22.48%. By comparison, the Nasdaq Biotechnology Index (NBI) ended the year up 32.4%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) rose 12.97%. In the first two months of 2026, the BNDI slipped 1.24%, compared with gains of 5.85% for the NBI and 1.9% for the DJIA.

Twelve years on from the World Health Organization formally raising the alarm, antimicrobial resistance continues to grow, and despite numerous public and private incentives and initiatives, the pipeline of antibiotics in development is thinner than ever.

The regulatory clouds that have been darkening the U.S. FDA landscape of late for Uniqure NV’s gene therapy AMT-130 in Huntington’s disease may be parting a bit with the announced departure of Vinay Prasad as director of the agency’s CBER at the end of April.

Biopharma financings totaled $16.78 billion in the first two months of 2026, about an 81% year-over-year rise from $9.28 billion in January to February 2025. While still below the outsized $33.29 billion recorded in the same period of 2024, and $24.37 billion in 2021, the early 2026 total significantly outpaces the more subdued levels seen in 2022 ($7.48 billion) and 2023 ($7.66 billion).