On the final episode of 2025, Daphne Zohar, Bruce Booth, and Eric Schmidt kick off with a general market overview, including a look back at 2025 and some predictions for 2026. The co-hosts discuss biotech rebounding in the last few months of 2025 after years of underperformance, driven by macro rotations and biopharma as an AI-trade hedge. They also discuss some recent follow-on activity from Immunome and Kyverna coming off positive data, before transitioning the conversation to the pros and cons of staying private versus going public. The recent FDA turmoil is also discussed, including reaction to the New York Times article on a potential coup attempt against Dr. Marty Makary led by RFK Jr., as well as an increase in seemingly random CNPV decisions, including J&J’s Tecvayli. The co-hosts then dive into STAT’s best and worst CEOs of 2025, suggesting leadership success can sometimes come down to luck. In data news, Kyverna reported positive results for its CAR‑T miv‑cel in stiff person syndrome, which — if approved — could represent one of the smallest datasets for a cell therapy approval and the first cell therapy for an autoimmune disease. The episode concludes with the breaking news of BioMarin’s $4.8B acquisition of Amicus Therapeutics. *This episode aired December 19, 2025.

On this week’s episode, Grace Colón, Chris Garabedian, Sam Fazeli, Paul Matteis, Yaron Werber, and special guest John Stanford kick off with a policy discussion on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), outlining both the opportunities and constraints it presents for biotech. The bill includes major biotech provisions such as a scaled back version of the BIOSECURE Act and the creation of a DoD Biotech Office, which suggests that biotech is now viewed as a national security asset. The conversation then shifts to positive signs in the biotech sector, including rising valuations, a decrease in companies with negative enterprise value, and predictions for the number of IPOs expected in the first half of 2026. Next, the group discusses conference highlights, including data from ASH presented by Lilly, BeOne Medicines, Gilead, and Arcellx versus J&J and Legend, as well as Genmab’s Epkinly. In other data news, the discussion turns to Dyne Therapeutics’ plans to seek FDA approval for DYNE-251 for DMD, following promising Phase 1/2 trial results. Despite some investor concerns about the FDA’s regulatory stance on rare diseases, sentiment remains optimistic that it will be approved. The episode closes with a round robin where each co-host shares their optimism levels for biotech in 2026, rating it on a scale from 1 to 10. *This episode aired on December 12, 2025.