Fairway interviewed by Endpoints News: Biopharma Struggles with Ongoing Certainty

Apr 15, 2025 16:36

By: Kyle LaHucik, Senior Reporter, April 11, 2025 11:19 AM EDT

An already bleak biotech market has become more daunting for job seekers, particularly executives.

It’s a gut punch for those who have been holding out hope for brighter days since 2022, when the biotech market tumbled after years of soaring growth.

Years later, not much appears better for the biotech workforce. Public financing is in a rut. IPOs have dried up. Companies are stopping work on drug candidates left and right. Investors want their money going toward drugs in the clinic. As for the cuts at federal health agencies, they are already having a negative impact on regulatory timelines, and there are thousands of scientific workers previously employed by the NIH and other agencies that are now out of work.

Some biopharma companies have paused hiring, several industry recruiters and executive search firms told Endpoints News.

“That may be a short pause or a long pause,” said Bill Holodnak, founder of executive search firm Occam Global, which recently placed former FDA principal deputy commissioner Namandjé Bumpus on Recursion’s board. “I, or few other people, I expect, know where it’s going to go and how much of this is a short-term aberration based on policy decisions that will have been made or whether it’s going to put a long-term crimp. But definitely we see a pause in hiring.”

At the same time, thousands of workers are in search of new jobs following more than 70 rounds of layoffs from private biotech startups, mid-size drug developers and large pharmaceutical makers so far this year. About 10 companies have shut down or disclosed plans to do so in 2025.

“I don’t know if it’s just because it’s more of a hammer and it’s acute, but the sentiment is even more sour from employees and leadership teams” than it was in 2023, said Dan Gold, president of Fairway Consulting Group, which helps recruits biopharma executives and board members. “I don’t know if it’s because when you get hit in the face the second time it hurts more, or it’s actually worse.”

Many drug developers, which are already battling a tough financing environment, are “tentative” right now when it comes to hiring. “Very few companies have conviction in hiring,” Eric Celidonio, founder of Sci.bio Recruiting, said in an email.

For biotech startups, every hire can feel like a make-or-break decision, especially in a climate with market turbulence and a lack of certainty. Nascent biotechs are hunkering down at LabCentral for longer stretches of time than they have in the past, according to Maggie O’Toole, operating chief and soon-to-be CEO of the lab operator. LabCentral houses hundreds of companies across multiple sites in Cambridge, MA.

Companies traditionally stay at LabCentral for about 18 months, but some are now lingering for up to 36 months to retain access to lab space and key functions provided by LabCentral, like procurement and equipment managers. The startups are hiring at a slower pace and relying more on CROs, O’Toole said.

Even well-financed startups with their own facilities are hiring in a very meticulous manner. Merida Biosciences, which just disclosed a $121 million Series A, is one example of a well-funded startup being cautious with hiring.

“Let’s choose big audacious goals and make sure that we can hit those with as lean a team as possible, stretching them, but watching them grow and watching them develop, and not getting too big, too quick,” Merida CEO Adam Townsend told Endpoints News.

Some workers have left the industry, Celidonio said. But some types of work are still in high demand, he noted, pointing to clinical development, regulatory and CMC. And if pharmaceutical tariffs take place, that could eventually lead to more hiring stateside for CDMOs, Gold said.

For mission-critical roles, like chief scientific officer and chief medical officer, the pressure is mounting as investors fixate on clinical-stage companies and reducing failure rates in clinical trials.

“It’s just a really tough environment,” Gold said. “It’s not a very forgiving environment for a CMO.”

Kyle LaHucik can be reached at klahucik@endpointsnews.com

FCG Pressroom