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The apparent tectonic shift in the global bio-innovation landscape has markedly accelerated, and 2025-26 is providing One Nucleus members with exciting opportunities and huge challenges like never before. Adapting to maintain the key role of convener, supporter, ally and compass for members navigating these changes has led One Nucleus to invest in developing a new toolbox to help our members.  


 

by Tony Jones, CEO, One Nucleus - email: [email protected] 

Topics in this article include: 

  • Adapting in unfamiliar times  

  • Navigating the fundraising and dealmaking system  

  • Who do you know and who do they know? 

  • Marketing and doing more with less 

  • A problem shared. 

It has Been a Year of Uncharted Territory 
It is probably human nature when you reach an anniversary to consider how the last year has played out. With August marking nine years since taking over as CEO at One Nucleus, it made me realise that the past year has been one of discovery around the way we can offer support to nascent and established life science companies who are still, in many cases, feeling the effects of a financing winter, geopolitical uncertainty and risk aversion. Critically, supporting companies and individuals dealing with both the challenges of such sector dynamics as well as the opportunities that emerge has helped inform One Nucleus about the support that is required and sharpened how that can be delivered in the most cost-effective way.  

There has been a return of investment in the sector in some quarters, particularly for later-stage opportunities, but not universally. Significant moves by Pharma and larger biotechs and acceleration of technology into biopharma R&D have changed the drug discovery ecosystem. In parallel, the rise of China in bio-innovation as well as outsourcing space has meant that biotech company leaders are having to reconsider their strategies with regard to in-house vs outsourcing R&D to satisfy their investors and R&D service providers to work hard on their value propositions to compete in a crowded market. There have been notable successes in terms of scale-up for UK biotechs raising investment to move programmes towards and through clinical development. Yet the opposite effect has been observed on R&D headcount and local employment. This dichotomy is not unique to the UK by any means.  

Responding to these changing dynamics has led to the past year being a big year for One Nucleus in terms of investing in new resources, collaborations and activities to maximise the support available without increasing the overheads passed on to our members to pay for that support. Described below is a brief round-up of the actions taken. 

Accessing Investment and Deals 
As described in the recent blog ‘Kissing Many Frogs: A Grimm Tale or Necessary Reality When Precision Fundraising in Biotech is Out of Reach? there are an ever-growing plethora of events that claim to have extensive lists of investors or Pharma executives attending, leading cash-seeking biotechs to commit £000’s to attending, pitching and hoping for leads as survival runways run short. In an age of seeking increasingly precise medicines, available data and connectivity maps, it feels like targeting the investors with the best fit should trump the scattergun approach and can be more cost-effective. To enable our members, One Nucleus has invested subscription fees and resources into activities including: 

  • Access to key databases such as PitchBook and Biotechgate for members to identify their most likely investors and how to reach them with a compelling and benchmarked value proposition. 

  • Delivery of One-ON-One member sessions to maximise access to the support available and needed. 

  • Expansion of collaborations with global investor and partnering conferences to reduce barriers to engagement and effectiveness once there. These include cornerstone events such as the RESI Series, BIO-Europe and LSX conferences. 

Who You Know Matters 
Many will still argue that who you know at least equals what you know when it comes to getting deals done. The connectivity One Nucleus can help our members build is a pivotal part of members gaining the insights and introductions that can impact their success trajectories.  

The well-known adage; ‘If you want money, ask for advice; if you want advice ask for money’ has never been more relevant. Directly asking investors for capital or customers for a contract as an opening gambit often triggers a defensive response when it is not preceded by actions to build familiarity, trust and respect. A key role of One Nucleus is to enable members to avoid eliciting such a response through the connectivity it offers. Most investment, partnering and outsourcing deals arise from leads generated via the buyer’s own professional network or indirectly through trusted introductions. Such approaches have the effect of lowering their guard to new opportunities. One Nucleus delivers initiatives to help members develop their brand awareness and connectivity in the sector, including: 

  • Pitching opportunities at our events and conferences, enabling the company to create champions within the ecosystem that can refer companies to their investor and industry contacts. Never forget that anyone sat in the auditorium could be the best friend of who you wish to engage with.  

  • The new good practice seminars and webinars where experienced peers present and discuss how they address key strategic and practical challenges, whether scientific, business practice or governance. Peer-to-peer learning is a valuable tool which both informs and builds relationships for further connectivity. 

Extending Marketing Budget Reach 
When deal flow is challenged, it can be the very time that marketing budget holders are expected to achieve more with less. This is fully appreciated by One Nucleus, where we have bucked the industry trend to a degree, seeking to reduce the calls on budgets rather than increasing the number and costs of events to create greater revenue margins for growth or simply to protect the organiser’s headcount. As a not-for-profit, the key focus has to remain on doing things that bring valuable support over doing things just to sustain growth or headcount. With this in mind, initiatives to help our members save have included: 

  • Introduction of 70% discounted rates for pitching and participating early-stage biotechs at Genesis and ON Helix. Further, merging the ON Annual Awards into Genesis will provide even greater value for money. 

  • Introduction of lower cost-per-delegate seminar options for Learning & Development alongside the more formal traditional Training Course portfolio. 

  • A continuing focus on securing the biggest discounts and profile-enhancing support at major investment and partnering conferences.  

Being in This Together 
The uncertain times the sector is facing are not only challenging at a sector or business level, but also at the people level. There have been numerous early-stage companies having to close or at least revert to minimal R&D operations even when successfully raising capital. High rates of redundancy in the UK biotech R&D sector have left many seeking new roles or alternative careers. Securing commercial advice, joining industry membership groups or retraining always has a price. For those driven into unemployment, this generally removes them from such activities even if their past employer remains engaged. One Nucleus has sought to address this situation in several ways, including: 

  • Opening our Going for Gold initiative to reduce the cost of access to the above support mechanisms and more at a time when cash runways are most squeezed. 

  • Launch of Working Dinners and webinars, with subsequent write-ups to provide an advocacy voice to all irrespective of status with potential solutions, desired changes in public policy or industry practice changes that could help render the UK a better, more competitive location for biotech R&D.  

In Conclusion 
The past year has seen some great deals announced, biomedical breakthroughs made and corporate exits reported in biotech. It has also been one of the most challenging for many who have seen their financing rounds stall, employment reduced and competitiveness on the global stage undermined. Getting the balance right between celebrating the successes whilst not overlooking those detrimentally impacted, One Nucleus has introduced, changed and merged some core activities to enhance the effectiveness of support whilst reducing the costs for members to engage.  

As the much-reported biotech industry green shoots hopefully continue to grow, it feels very much like whilst the tall trees forming the canopy of the biotech forest are seeing much more sunlight from capital pools, it is going to take some time yet for the grassroot nascent biotech companies and their R&D service providers to see a thawing of the hard ground. Adapting how and what One Nucleus does to maximise support whilst minimising the overhead on members enables us to help as many of our stakeholders as possible be resilient and ultimately flourish. It is our good fortune to be custodians of a fantastic network of talented, skilled and knowledgeable biotech people, and it is our pleasure to be on their journey with them.