It may have seemed like an ordinary Wednesday afternoon at MassBio’s headquarters in Technology Square, but the black SUV parked outside was a telltale sign that the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based biotech trade group was playing host to a government official.
Inside, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey summed up the central problem for many of the early-stage biotechs that power the Boston economy: “It's all about access to capital right now at a time when it's harder to come by.”
“We know that venture firms are making investments in less risky entities than early-stage companies,” Healey told an audience of journalists. “So how can we work with them and incentivize them and make sure our programming is delivering all that it can?”
Healey’s query followed a closed-door meeting with nearly 50 early-stage biotech CEOs to discuss the state of the industry. The governor's comments that followed the meeting focused on access to capital and cost-of-living issues for early-stage drug developers.
Among the list of attendees shared with Fierce was Daphne Zohar, CEO of newly public, depression-focused biotech Seaport Therapeutics. Other CEOs due to attend the briefing included Errik Anderson of biotech ecosystem company Alloy Therapeutics, Mari Anne Snow of nanomedicine startup Eascra Biotech, and Daniel Fischer of genetic medicine company Tevard Biosciences.
Prior to the meeting, CEOs could submit questions to the governor, and she spoke with the biotech leaders for over an hour before the press briefing.
The meet-up came a couple of weeks after MassBio published the latest in its annual series of industry snapshots, which highlighted a mixed bag of biotech indicators. Some aspects of funding are doing well, according to the report. Massachusetts raised $3.45 billion in venture capital funding in the first half of 2026, up 25% year over year and marking the best start to a year since 2023.
MassBio also noted that the eight biotech IPOs in the state in the first half of the year were the highest number of public listings since 2021. Meanwhile, the state out-licensed $10.9 billion worth of biotech innovation across 27 deals across 2025.
But despite the success of larger companies, early-stage companies continue to struggle. While the number of seed rounds for Massachusetts companies rose from 15 to 21 in the first half of the year, the average amount of these fundraises fell to $4.6 million from $7.6 million—a nearly 40% drop.
“It's actually been a very extraordinary year in terms of success in the life science sector, both in exit and IPO and obviously clinical outcomes,” Massachusetts Secretary of the Executive Office of Economic Development Eric Paley said at the event. “Some of our best companies have had some extraordinary clinical wins, but that is not yet translating back to the early stage.”
MelliCell CEO Ben Pope, Ph.D., echoed the need for increased access to funds. The Greater Boston-based biotech company has a pill for obesity, autism and dementia in preclinical development.
“The cost of capital is such that it's difficult for investors to fund early-stage preclinical work,” Pope told Fierce on the sidelines of the event. “It's been that way for several years—essentially since COVID—and so that's definitely part of it. Investments are pouring into clinical-stage and later-stage companies, while companies at our stage are dying.”
During the briefing, Paley pointed to organizations like the quasi-public life science investors Massachusetts Life Science Center and MassVentures as avenues the state has used to support the startup community. He also emphasized that the state government has a goal to triple capital funding for university system spinouts.
“Massachusetts overall has an unbelievable pipeline of research,” Paley said. “We're not getting enough of it out of the labs, and if we're going to have less money in the labs because of federal funding, we have to get a lot more efficient to get that translated into the market.”
Beyond funding, the state’s biotech employment numbers muddy the waters further, with biopharma R&D jobs in Massachusetts shrinking by around 3,600 roles over the course of 2025—equivalent to a 3.1% reduction, according to last month's MassBio report. This marked the first annual decline in more than two decades, the report’s authors pointed out.
But MassBio’s Head of External Affairs Ben Bradford told Fierce at the time that much of the losses were contained in the first three quarters of last year. The state added 100 R&D jobs from October through December 2025, he noted.
Vacancy rates are another worrying statistic for the state’s biotech industry. The amount of lab and manufacturing inventory almost tripled from 21.5 million square feet in 2015 to 63.2 million square feet a decade later. This oversupply of lab space has seen the vacancy rate rise to 31% across the state as of mid-2026.
While Pope told Fierce at the event that MelliCell has no plans to move, he explained that the company is focused on finding cost-effective ways to advance its candidates.
“There’s no other option,” the CEO said. “We've found cost-effective solutions for different things, and are planning clinical trials accordingly. I’m very interested to hear about some of the reforms that people are talking about in that regard. Hopefully, that happens soon enough to make a difference for us and the patients that stand to benefit.”
The changing global biopharma landscape is another reason why it's no longer business as usual for Boston's biotechs. At the event, Healey noted the investment that China has made into its homegrown industry and the country's rapid rise to become an innovation powerhouse.
“The world has changed,” she told attendees. “It's changed with an ever increasingly competitive global economy. Massachusetts not only competes against other regions of the United States in this space, but also against places around the world. I, as governor, am really mindful of this.”
Lowering the costs of housing by building more of it, improving public transportation and lowering energy costs are all part of Healey’s plan to support the industry by making it easier for biotech workers to live and work in the state.
“We've got to ensure that we're continuing to bet on U.S. innovation and understanding their challenges and pain points,” MassBio CEO Kendalle O’Connell said at the briefing. “Where are the cracks in our ecosystem? So those cracks don't become craters. We want to maintain our global leadership position.”
In an effort to prevent those craters from forming, Healey pointed to her DRIVE initiative in the state, a $400 million project to retain talent in the research and innovation fields. The initiative includes $200 million for a one-time, multi-year research funding pool to sponsor research at hospitals, universities and independent research institutions.
“Massachusetts continues to be the place where people want to be,” Healey said. “They want to come. They want to study here. They want to do research here. They want to incubate and scale here. And our job in government is to be the support and do all we can to continue to further that.”
Healey also said the state government is looking at ways it can partner with Big Pharma and venture capital in the region to support investment in the biotech startup scene.
“These early-stage companies do great and amazing things and empower this economy and have changed the world,” she said.
Healey, a Democrat who is up for reelection in November and running against the former CEO of the medical device company Abiomed, highlighted the importance of investing early in biotech.
“We're a place that invested in, nurtured, supported early-stage companies,” she said. “Were it not for the risks taken by investors decades ago, were it not for the work of people in labs and the support both of the state and academic and investment community, Massachusetts would not be where it is today.”