In a year when investors were hesitant to loosen their purse strings, one sector of the healthcare industry stood out for bringing in the big bucks: biopharma companies that focus on artificial intelligence (AI).

Investors put $5.6 billion into such companies, which develop drugs made of biological sources like vaccines, in 2024—a more than 300% increase from 2023 when the figure stood at $1.8 billion, according to a Jan. 7 analysis from Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). The biopharma sector overall collected 52% ($21.2 billion) of all investment dollars put into the US healthcare sector in 2024, the report found.

“We’re seeing a lot more dollars being flowed into the industry and into the market,” Ashkan Afkhami, managing director and senior partner in Boston Consulting Group’s (BCG) healthcare practice (who was not involved in creating SVB’s analysis), told Healthcare Brew.

But why? AI has the potential to expedite the drug development process and save developers significant dollars, according to Afkhami.

Keep reading here.—MA

Less than one month into President Donald Trump’s second term, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is in the midst of an unprecedented shakeup with potentially far-reaching ramifications.

Since Trump took office, the agency, which funds and supports the majority of medical research and innovation across the US, has faced restrictions on what it can communicate to the public, broad funding cuts and, most recently, high-level resignations.

One of NIH’s top officials, Lawrence A. Tabak, stepped down and retired on February 12, according to Stat, which described Tabak as “the longtime No. 2 official” at the NIH. The principal deputy director of NIH, Tabak is a dentist and scientist who spent 15 years with the agency.

Neither Tabak nor the NIH have spoken publicly about the reason for the resignation, which comes as the Trump administration attempts to cut 15% of “indirect costs” on all NIH grants, totalling an estimated $4 billion in spending out of a total budget of $48 billion. The NIH did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Tabak’s resignation.

Multiple sources told CBS News that Tabak was forced out, with one former colleague saying that Tabak “had been excluded from key meetings.”

Keep reading here.—CM

Last week, major pharmaceutical companies reported earnings for the first time since the inauguration, and executives weighed in on how what’s happening in Washington might affect them.

Trump’s proposed tariffs could be a giant headwind for pharma. Though Trump recently paused tariffs on Canada and Mexico, the tariff on China still stands, and he’s also floated the idea of placing a 20% tariff on the “rest of the world” (ROW) beyond those three countries. A ROW tariff would affect some countries that are major exporters of pharmaceuticals and immunological products (such as vaccines) to the US, including Germany, Japan, Ireland, India, Italy, and the UK. According to an analysis by PwC, if Trump’s proposed tariffs are enacted with no exemptions, the pharma and life sciences industry’s toll could rise from $90 million to more than $56 billion a year.

In the most recent round of earnings calls, though, executives from this industry appeared unfazed by tariffs. Merck’s CFO, Caroline Litchfield, said the company has “very low levels of manufacturing happening in China, in Mexico and Canada” and would expect “a very immaterial impact” from the most recent round of tariffs.

Keep reading on CFO Brew.—CV