Most 2030 forecasts for the bioeconomy rest on one assumption: that the science keeps advancing and money keeps following it. We have spent this series collecting measured numbers on both. Put side by side, they do not move together.

This post compares each indicator we have sourced with its own best year. The question is simple: how close is each one to its peak today?

Where does each indicator stand against its own peak?

Source: ClinicalTrials.gov; RCSB PDB; FDA; PitchBook via BioSpace; IQVIA via Fierce Biotech. Latest year is 2025 for all series. Peaks: trial starts and PDB releases, 2025; FDA approvals, 59 in 2018; mRNA trials, 129 in 2021; venture funding, $55.7B in 2021; IPOs, 104 in 2021.

View data

indicator	pct
Bispecific antibody trial starts	100
CAR-T trial starts	100
Antibody-drug conjugate trial starts	100
GLP-1 trial starts	100
Protein structures released (PDB)	100
FDA novel drug approvals	78
mRNA trial starts	64
Biopharma venture funding	61
US biotech IPOs (count)	11

The chart splits into two groups.

Activity near its peak. New trial starts for bispecific antibodies, CAR-T, antibody-drug conjugates and GLP-1 drugs were all at their highest in 2025 (173, 372, 95 and 193). The Protein Data Bank released a record 17,602 structures. FDA approved 46 novel drugs in 2025, 78% of the 2018 record of 59, and about at its ten-year average of 47.

Money well below its peak. Venture funding for biopharma was $33.8 billion in 2025 against $55.7 billion in 2021, or 61%. Only 11 biotech companies went public on US exchanges in 2025, against 104 in 2021, or 11%. Both are comparisons with a boom year, and 2021 was unusual. But it is notable that funding recovered roughly to where it was in 2024, while the number of IPOs fell by more than half, from 24 to 11.

mRNA is the exception on the science side. Its trial starts peaked in 2021 with COVID-19 and have run at 64% of that level since.

What does this mean for 2030?

Forecasts such as McKinsey's, which sees direct economic impact of $2 trillion to $4 trillion a year from biological applications over the next 10 to 20 years, assume activity turns into products and products into revenue. The data above says the first step is happening. It is silent on the second.

Two scenarios are consistent with the numbers. In one, record research activity is funded from other sources, such as pharma budgets and public funding, and the drop in IPOs just means companies stay private or get acquired. In the other, the gap between activity and capital eventually slows the pipeline. We cannot tell which from this data.

What we can do is name what to watch. Each of these is published regularly:

• PitchBook's full-year biopharma venture figures, to see whether the $33.8 billion of 2025 holds.
• The number of US biotech IPOs per year, which was 24 in 2024 and 11 in 2025.
• Trial starts by treatment type on ClinicalTrials.gov, to see whether growth in bispecifics and CAR-T continues or flattens.
• The share of Mounjaro revenue outside the US, which passed 50% in 2026 (see our GLP-1 analysis).

Limits

The chart compares each series with itself, so a bar at 100% means a record, not a large number. Trial starts are counts of registrations, not results. The peaks in funding and IPOs come from the boom year of 2021, and some of that activity was likely unsustainable, so 61% and 11% do not mean the market is broken. The IPO counts are IQVIA's, as reported by Fierce Biotech.

Sources

1. ClinicalTrials.gov, Data API: trial starts by treatment type, 2015 to 2025. Details in our modalities analysis.
2. RCSB Protein Data Bank, search API: structures released per year. See our protein structure analysis.
3. US FDA, New Drug Therapy Approvals 2024, and RAPS, CDER approved 46 novel drugs in 2025.
4. BioSpace, Early-stage biotechs suffer in 2025 as VC shuns risk: PitchBook: venture funding of $55.7 billion (2021), $31.9 billion (2024) and $33.8 billion (2025).
5. Fierce Biotech, Biopharma funding dropped 20% in 2025 as companies doubled down on big bets: IQVIA: 104 IPOs in 2021, 24 in 2024, 11 in 2025.
6. McKinsey Global Institute, The Bio Revolution, May 2020.