Features

Monoclonal antibodies as a group continue to lead biopharmaceuticals in numbers of approvals and sales, although COVID-19 vaccines shot to the top of the list of highest-grossing individual products.

A survey of national R&D-driven health biotech sectors ranks Switzerland, Sweden and the United States as leading centers for R&D-driven biotech. John Hodgson and Deanna Schreiber-Gregory report.

Private biotech firms are awash with funding, raising record-breaking sums in 2020. Melanie Senior reports.

Nature Biotechnology asks a selection of faculty about the most exciting frontier in their field and the most needed technologies for advancing knowledge and applications.

Investment and funding has continued to flow into biotech, unlike most business sectors. But with healthcare and hospital budgets increasingly under pressure, do belt-tightening and consolidation lie ahead? Melanie Senior investigates, with additional reporting by Riku Lähteenmäki.

Our annual survey highlights startups tackling intractable viruses with new vaccine design, engineering a reliable source of platelets, universalizing cell therapies, improving cancer screening, developing RNA-editing platforms and targeting protein–RNA interactions. Michael Eisenstein, Ken Garber, Caroline Seydel and Laura DeFrancesco report.

European biotech companies continued to raise unprecedented amounts of capital last year. Can they survive what are likely to be leaner times ahead?

China is finally embracing biopharmaceutical innovation, but it is innovation that looks different from that in the West.

Public companies continued to ride the crest of the wave of financing, licensing deals and regulatory approvals, but clouds may be looming on the horizon for the biggest biotech players. Chris Morrison and Riku Lähteenmäki report.

Our annual survey highlights startups taking on gene therapy, adoptive immune cell therapy, gene editing, and drugs targeting RNA modifications and the unfolded protein response. Ken Garber, Esther Landhuis, Melanie Senior, Cormac Sheridan and Laura DeFrancesco report.

2018 was the year when the funding machine for privately held biotech companies went into overdrive, with mega-rounds and rapid flotations. John Hodgson brings us this deep dive.

Monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) continue to reign supreme, although cellular and gene therapies are slowly starting to gather momentum. Burgeoning growth in biosimilars may threaten future brand monopolies for mAbs and other biologics.

A group of microbiome researchers discuss some of the challenges in developing a new generation of microbiome therapies.

Last year, investors scrambled to invest in newly floated biotechs. This, together with a brisk licensing market and policy tailwinds, helped boost the sector, even as an expected M&A boom was late to materialize.

More investors are building companies from scratch, with more money than any time in biotech's history.

Our annual survey highlights how immune-oncology and screens based on the application of cutting-edge omics technologies are providing a launchpad for a succession of startups interrogating biology across biomedicine.

Two years after the biotech industry was called out on gender imbalance, the lack of racial diversity in the workforce is largely being ignored.

Regulators, scientists and surgeons are preparing the groundwork for human trials of engineered pig organs—and industry is starting to take notice.

Is it time to reassess the 14-day rule for human embryo research?