Beyond Biotech - the podcast from Labiotech

Today, we're thrilled to have Tim Opler, a leading voice in biotech investment banking. Tim's career spans academia, Credit Suisse, and co-founding Torreya Partners, which Stifel acquired in 2023. As Managing Director in Stifel's Global Healthcare Group, he's advised on over 150 deals totaling more than $100 billion, shaping major M&A, licensing, and financings in life sciences.
Tim is renowned for his insightful Biopharma Market Updates, and in this episode, we'll dive into his December 2025 edition, where he outlines five transformative trends set to drive biopharma for the next decade: M&A booms, giant markets like obesity and aging drugs, China's rising innovation, AI's reshape of healthcare, and incredible scientific advances.
01:22 - Meet Tim Opler
03:12 - Stifel and the Biopharma Market Updates
05:50 - Trend 1: M&A Booms
10:06 - Trend 2: Giant Markets
17:05 - Trend 3: China's Innovation
22:29 - Trend 4: AI Reshaping Healthcare
28:42 - Trend 5: Incredible Science
34:18 - Looking forward
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To dive deeper into the topic: 
10 biotech companies in China you should know about
When AI isn’t enough: How physics is shaping the next wave of drug discovery 
JPM 2026: what’s the outlook like this year?

Today I’m joined by not one, not two, but three guests with their takes on the biotech year ahead. In December we tasked Labiotech journalists Jules Adam, Roohi Peter, and Willow Shah-Neville with the task of identifying the five biotech players that they thought would be the ones to watch in 2026. Now you can read that article at Labiotech-dot-EU, and we’ve linked it in the show notes here in your podcast player, too, but on today’s episode I’m joined by Jules, Roohi, and Willow who explain a little more about the companies that caught their eye and what might be expected of those companies in the year ahead.
15 companies, three journalists, all in one special podcast as we uncover the companies to watch in 2026.
1:18     Meet Jules Adam
2:30     Abivax
4:04     AAVantgarde Bio
6:10     Isotope Technologies Munich (ITM)
8:16     MaaT Pharma
9:55     Novo Nordisk
13:15    Meet Willow Shah-Neville
14:29    Kardigan
18:23    Braveheart Bio
21:16    Beam Therapeutics
24:34    MindMed
27:39    Kailera Therapeutics
32:36    Meet Roohi Peter
33:30    Aspen Neuroscience
34:45    Reunion Neuroscience
36:14    MapLight Therapeutiucs
37:41    Hope Medicine
38:59    Regenxbio
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To dive deeper into the topic: 
Keep an eye on these 15 biotech companies in 2026 
Biotech in 2025: A retrospective 
Eight of the biggest immunology and inflammation (I&I) deals in 2025

Welcome to our first episode for 2026.
Today, we're joined by Hakan Goker, Managing Director at M Ventures, the strategic corporate venture capital arm of Merck KGaA. With over two decades in biotech investing, Hakan has driven transformative deals in oncology, autoimmune diseases, and beyond, including standout 2025 investments like FoRx Therapeutics and portfolio milestones such as Artios' FDA Fast Track designation. 
As we kick off 2026 at Beyond Biotech, Hakan shares insights on corporate VC advantages, emerging therapeutic priorities, and the industry's evolving landscape amid rising M&A and AI innovation. 
1:10                 Meet Hakan Goka
4:37                 About M Ventures and pharma CVC
8:14                 Sourcing innovative biotechs
12:52                How M Ventures works with Merck KGaA
16:54              M Ventures in 2025
24:46                Areas to watch in the new year
29:19                Looking forward to 2026
32:20                The next big thing in biotech?
33:08                Advice for biotechs pitching CVC
Interested in being a sponsor of an episode of our podcast? Discover how you can get involved here! 
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To dive deeper into the topic: 
The ABC of biotech startup funding
Seven genome sequencing companies to look out for
Labiotech's 2025 biotech funding tracker

Welcome to our final episode for 2025. We’re taking a little break for the holidays but we’ll be back again on Friday 9th of January to kick off our year with the Managing Director of Merck KGaA’s M Ventures, Hakan Goker.
Today, though, I’m joined by Ester in t’Groen of Johnson & Johnson.
Fresh off the American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting in Orlando, where J&J presented over 60 abstracts, Ester shares insights into the company's portfolio and the advances that the company has made over recent years in the hematology space.
She walks us through the real-world evidence for some pretty significant results from the thousands of patients in their clinical trials, and explain what's next for J&J in hematology in 2026—including some exciting readouts.
01:14 - Meet Ester in t'Groen    
02:37 - Winning the Kilmer Medal
06:32 - J&J's key focus areas
07:32 - The hematology portfolio
19:07 - All about ASH 2025
23:49 - The MajesTEC-3 data
27:43 - The value of real-world datasets
32:06 - Looking forward into 2026
Interested in being a sponsor of an episode of our podcast? Discover how you can get involved here! 
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To dive deeper into the topic: 
Blood Cancer Awareness Month: What biotech holds in store 
10 oncology deals in 2025 spotlight where industry leaders are betting big
T cell engagers: A promising, fast-growing field for cancer and autoimmune disease treatments

In this episode we sit down with Martin Beck, Senior Vice President and Head of the Inflammation Business Unit at Boehringer Ingelheim. Martin grew up just down the road from the company’s headquarters in Germany, joined as a scholarship student more than 20 years ago, and never really left – and you’ll hear why he still loves it.
We spend most of the episode focused on a disease that doesn’t get nearly enough attention: idiopathic and progressive pulmonary fibrosis. These are rare, fatal lung-scarring conditions that kill faster than many cancers, yet patients often shrug off the first symptoms as “just aging.” 
Martin walks us through why half the people on today’s treatments stop taking them, how BI just brought the first new medicine in over a decade to the U.S. market, and why an AI tool that spots microscopic changes on lung scans might finally help doctors diagnose and treat these patients’ years earlier. 
01:24   Meet Martin Beck
04:21   About Boehringer Ingelheim
07:12   Understanding idiopathic & progressive pulmonary fibrosis
10:16   Current treatments & high discontinuation rates
12:25   BI’s long-term investment in PF
16:02   eLung AI tool for earlier diagnosis
22:16   A new oral PDE4B inhibitor
28:13   Key data highlights from the recent ERS congress
30:31   FDA approval & global rollout plans
Interested in being a sponsor of an episode of our podcast? Discover how you can get involved here! 
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To dive deeper into the topic: 
Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis: Refoxy, Boehringer, Insilico, and more on the hunt for curative treatments
Eight respiratory disease companies advancing innovative therapies in 2025
BI: Life with pulmonary fibrosis