From Adelaide to San Francisco, the biotechnology landscape is shifting – and, in some cases, straining under the weight of market uncertainty.
Venture capital funding for biotech has contracted dramatically since its 2021 peak: According to PitchBook, U.S. biotech VC investment fell nearly 40 per cent between 2021 and 2023, while follow-on financing in Europe declined by a similar percentage over the same period. IPO windows have tightened, timelines have doubled, and early-stage founders face challenging conditions.
Yet in that pressure lies a pattern – one that Ottawa-based CarMa Institute is uniquely positioned to see up close.
A growing global capital strategy and investor-relations firm headquartered in the ByWard Market, CarMa works with biotech companies across five continents. Through its vantage point – part trend forecaster, part global operator – a clearer picture has emerged of what 2026 will look like for the industry.
Bold innovation, funding fatigue
“When you work with founders from across the globe, there’s one thing that stands out: the science has never been bolder,” says Dr. Anirudh Kumar, founder and CEO of CarMa Institute. “The North American and European markets aren’t matching that courage right now.”
CarMa’s portfolio consists of multiple scientists and operators chasing high-impact indications that carry an immense global disease burden, such as neurodegenerative diseases, mood disorders, cancers, and autoimmune diseases. Their therapeutics could be transformative, but they’re burdened by cash-flow constraints, raise fatigue, and a funding environment that has become increasingly risk-averse.
It’s not that investors no longer believe in biotech. Instead, the market is sorting – sometimes too aggressively – between modalities, mechanisms, and perceived timelines.
One example that reflects this nuance is the recent news cycle surrounding Novo Nordisk’s halted semaglutide trial for Alzheimer’s disease. Headlines proclaimed a GLP-1 failure in neurodegeneration, but as Kumar notes, the caveat was buried: This was an oral semaglutide formulation, not the subcutaneous version used for metabolic disease. The oral route has significantly different pharmacokinetics and bioavailability. “The devil is in the details,” Kumar says. “And in biotech investing, details determine the difference between a failed story and a misunderstood one.”
What biotech investors are really chasing in 2026
Across CarMa’s networks in the Middle East, APAC, Europe, and North America, several themes continue to dominate investor appetite:
- Obesity and metabolic disease
- Neurodegenerative disease
- Women’ s health and oncology
- Longevity therapeutics
- Brain-health technologies
While cell therapy investment has largely been abandoned by many companies, Kumar says its potential remains massive. “Every modality cycles through hype and winter,” he says. “But cell therapy in the right hands will redefine modern medicine.”
It’s this blend of realism and conviction that shapes CarMa’s identity. CarMa’s vantage point is unusual in Canada – the firm works across borders, advises biotech companies backed by venture groups such as Novo Holdings, and collaborates with founders navigating late-stage science as well as early-stage discovery. It straddles both scientific rigour and narrative intelligence.
“We’re becoming a global enterprise with various arms: investor relations, capital strategy, seed investing and facilitating M&A, but the core is unchanged,” Kumar says. “We help founders with meaningful science stand a chance in a very noisy world.”
HavaH Therapeutics: A silent revolution in women’s health
If there’s one company that illustrates the shift in biotech investing, it’s Australia/U.S.-based HavaH Therapeutics, a CarMa portfolio company leading a new chapter in women’s health.
More than 60,000 American women are diagnosed with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) each year. Over 90 per cent of these cases are hormone-receptor positive, yet most women undergo invasive procedures: surgery, radiation, or chronic endocrine therapy for lesions that may never progress.
Havah’s lead program, HAV-088, is a one-time, reversible subcutaneous implant offering sustained hormone suppression without daily pills or the collateral damage of overtreatment. It embodies the growing investor hunger for minimal-burden therapeutics, decentralized care, and health-equity innovation.
“At CarMa, we look for founders who aren’t just building a product, they’re solving disease burden with elegant, simple solutions,” Kumar says. Havah fits that description precisely.
“For decades, women with DCIS have faced options that were burdensome and never designed around their lives,” says HavaH CEO Matt Brewer. “Our quarterly implant brings androgen receptor biology to life in a treatment that is simple, predictable, and far less disruptive than surgery, radiation, or daily endocrine pills. Women deserve options that reflect modern science, and HAV-088 is built to deliver exactly that.”
Blue Cell Therapeutics: The future of regenerative and precision medicine
From Copenhagen, Blue Cell Therapeutics is reimagining regenerative medicine with a patented, immune-privileged stem cell line designed to overcome the biggest challenges in cell therapy: scalability, immune rejection, and safety.
With promising early preclinical evidence, Blue Cell reflects the next era of biotech: platform-stage companies capable of addressing multiple indications with a single core technology. “We believe Blue Cell represents the best of next-gen biotech: rigorous, visionary, and built to scale,” says Kumar. “This is science with massive potential – and staying power, hence we are proud to call it our portfolio company.”
Blue Cell’s momentum mirrors a broader global shift: Investors increasingly want fewer single-asset bets and more multi-shot-on-goal platforms that de-risk capital while preserving scientific boldness.
“There is space for new cell therapies with two important characteristics: first it needs to have high efficacy, and secondly, it should be affordable,” says Dr. Soren Sheikh, founder and CEO of Blue Cell Therapeutics. “This will benefit patients and secure fast uptake in the most important markets.”
A message to Ottawa founders: ‘Think bigger’
While Ottawa isn’t typically mentioned in the same breath as Boston or Copenhagen, the city’s innovators, academic institutions, and scientific output give the city a disproportionate amount of undiscovered potential.
“Global biotech is extremely competitive,” Kumar says, adding that CarMa’s Byward Market headquarters serves as a small but strategic and meaningful coordination space for founders, investors, and researchers. “If you’re thinking about solving an indication, chances are that molecule is already in a clinical trial somewhere in the world.
“Ottawa founders need to think bigger, build multi-asset strategies, and articulate global relevance from Day 1.”
Charting a visionary future for therapeutics
CarMa’s philosophy has sharpened as the organization has evolved. “The market is searching for blockbuster drugs,” Kumar says, “but we’re searching for solutions that change disease burden. Sometimes they’re the same thing, sometimes they’re not.”
CarMa believes the future of biotech rests with provocative and courageous founders willing to build platforms – not just molecules – that meaningfully improve quality of life.
In its own quiet way, CarMa is helping position Ottawa as part of that global transformation by helping shape the future of biotech one partnership, one narrative, and one breakthrough at a time.
