The biotech industry may have an expected compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of almost 14% between 2024 and 2030, but that’s not to say that biotech firms are having an easy ride. This is in part due to a rocky investment landscape, which is leaving early-stage innovators in a tricky spot. 

When it comes to communicating with investors, and ultimately positioning your company as a viable investment opportunity, biotech marketing is an essential tool. Here, we drill into four current investment trends, and how they should inform your early-stage biotech’s marketing. 

Venture capitalists hold the power 

Although public funding has been hard to come by for biotechs, venture capitalists (VCs) are providing what McKinsey describes as a “much-needed lifeline to fuel biotech innovation”. Their research also finds that in 2023, almost half of biotech VC deals were for Series A funding. 

To raise that all-important Series A funding, you’ll need to demonstrate that your business has the potential for strong, long-term growth. A marketing strategy can help. Communicating your successes, milestones, and future ambitions will show VCs that your business model works, and that you have a strategy in place to develop it further. 

Some marketing assets that could help you do so include: 

• Social proof, from case studies to partnership announcements 

• Research reports that show the value you bring to the market 

• Company updates, such as press releases  

You’ll also need a strong pitch deck that positions your brand as robust and future-proofed, and ultimately gets VCs excited to talk to you. 

The IPO landscape is in recovery 

Although the public market isn’t moving as quickly as the industry might like, it does seem to be recovering from the slowness of the last few years. Even as an early-stage biotech firm, getting an initial public offering (IPO) could be on your radar for the future – so it’s worth starting to prepare. 

A key part of this process will be creating your IPO prospectus. To get ready for this, you’ll need to know how to articulate your business and product offering clearly yet accurately: something that Baker McKenzie notes as a challenge for many early-stage biotech companies.  

Start by pinning down your brand and value proposition. This will help you distil your offering into language that justifies its commercial value. Then, create marketing assets that communicate it consistently across channels. This could be an ‘About us’ or ‘Our mission’ webpage, or a brochure that explains how your product works in an easy-to-understand way. 

You can find more tips like this in our blog on translating tech into customer-friendly content. Although it’s based on B2C health tech, many of the concepts will be transferrable to investor-focused biotech marketing.  

Partnerships offer a route to capital 

As investment opportunities fluctuate, developing partnerships with larger companies has emerged as another route to capital for biotechs. As Deloitte discusses, partnerships allow small and midsize biotech companies to benefit from new expertise, resources, and markets, while also developing the trust that could one day lead to an M&A. 

So, how can early-stage biotechs engage with larger companies in order to kickstart these commercially beneficial collaborations? If you have a specific business in mind, then account-based marketing (ABM) could be your route forward. You could create a content marketing strategy that positions your brand as values aligned, or one that’s able to fill the gaps in your target partner’s skillset. 

Some of the marketing assets that could support your ABM include: 

• Thought leadership articles  

• Tailored landing pages 

• Personalised email flows 

• Case studies from similar accounts  

• Social media posts for community building. 

You can find more ABM tips in our blog: How to build a B2B account-based marketing strategy. 

Strong management teams count 

Investors want to take as few risks as possible to protect their finances and portfolio. While it’s not always possible to bet on a sure thing, it’s clear that having an experienced management team – one with a strong commercial track record – is important to investors.  

The chances are that as an early-stage biotech company, you’ve invested in developing a management team that you believe will drive your business forward. The next challenge is to communicate this in your marketing, so that your investors can see the same potential.  

One way of doing this is to create bios on your website for each executive team member, highlighting their career to date, what they bring to the role, and what VC, IPO or M&A experience they have. These bios can then be repurposed into formats such as ‘meet the team’ social media posts. 

Thought leadership is another angle to take. You could publish articles that explore executives’ unique perspectives on the market, or encourage them to share insights from their personal LinkedIn accounts. 

 

Differentiate your biotech products with digital marketing 

When it comes to taking your biotech brand from startup to scaleup and beyond, strategic marketing is an essential component.  

If you’d like to find out how we used digital marketing to create a commercially ready biotech brand, check out our case study with GenomeKey.