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The Brutal Truth About Biotech: Why $2B Per Drug Is Killing Innovation

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November 14, 2025

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Two venture capitalists dissect why biotech burns billions while China runs trials in weeks, and why the next Genentech won't look anything like the last one. Elliot Hershberg reveals the "three horsemen" strangling drug development as costs explode to $2.5 billion per approval, while Lada Nuzhna exposes how investigator-initiated trials in Shanghai are rewriting the competitive playbook faster than American founders can file INDs. When the infrastructure that built monoclonal antibodies becomes the commodity threatening to hollow out an entire industry, the only path forward demands inventing medicines that are literally impossible to make without tools that don't exist yet, and they're betting everything on which approach survives.

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Guests & Subjects Covered

The Brutal Truth About BiotechElliot HershbergLada NuzhnaINDs WhenThe StateBiotech Record LowsStructural ChallengesMarket Reality

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