Biotech Startup Failures

A co-founder of Google's ex-wife put your DNA in a database. Then she lost the company.

$305M and a novel AML concept, but modest Phase 1 responses made the pivotal trial unaffordable.

Rick Klausner's star-studded cell therapy company raised $800M, IPO'd at $25, now trades at $1

The gene therapy pioneer that spent 14 years and 4B dollars developing cures for rare diseases and became a zombie when payers refused to cover the 2.8M dollar price tag.

Two cloud lab companies merged to survive, then spent five more years slowly proving robots can't beat bench scientists on cost.

One failed trial erased $200M and a decade of Friedreich's Ataxia hope.

Weizmann spinout raised $46M on phage therapy hope, collapsed after Phase 2 failure.

The Alzheimer's drug that hit $4B on manipulated data — SEC consent order, CEO resignation, open investigation

Base editing pioneer from the Broad Institute — stock fell 90% as biotech multiples compressed

Penn Medicine gene therapy spin-out — IPO at $18, fell to $0.50 after trial failures

Personalized cancer T-cells at $500K each — the math never worked.

The biological platform company that would program cells like software. The cells didn't scale like software.

A $280M blood disorder biotech crushed by a competitor already approved and dominant.

The Y Combinator startup solving Africa's invisibility in global genomics — until the funding ran out

One failed kidney trial dissolved a $165M precision medicine company in 60 days.

Engineered bacteria as living medicines — a beautiful scientific idea that the clinic could not validate

FDA-approved antibiotic Xenleta couldn't survive the broken economics of the US antibiotic market.

Treating only 28 patients before funds ran dry — a cell therapy too small to survive biotech winter.

A $300M oncology spin-off killed not by science but by a parent's balance sheet.

A Roivant spin-off in targeted protein degradation — shut down before clinical proof of concept

The biotech that raised $1.8 billion promising to sell cancer drugs at 90% off list price — then failed its clinical trials, collapsed its SPAC valuation from $3.4B to near zero, and merged away

A radiation-defense biotech that couldn't survive its own clinical fallout.

COVID test kit promises, $8B market cap, Chapter 11 — the biotech that ran out of miracles

Immune toxicity in one-third of patients ended this blood cancer drug's career fast.

Roche paid $800M upfront for a COVID antiviral that failed Phase 3 — then asked for the money back

Fifteen years chasing an HIV vaccine — shut down after Phase 2 failure drained the runway

Bristol-Myers Squibb walking away from their partnership sealed Neon Therapeutics' fate.

When your only drug fails two trials at once, returning cash is the honest exit.

Novel diabetes mechanism, modest Phase 2a results, and a decisive Phase 2b failure ended Melior's 14-year quest.

The anti-obesity biotech that discovered a novel MetAP2 enzyme pathway, advanced to Phase 3, and dissolved after two fatal clinical safety events.

Twenty-five years of neural stem cell hope ended in Chapter 7 with $2M left in the bank.

Biotech stock fell 80% in a single day after Phase 3 failure — the Eosinophilic Gastritis gamble that didn't pay

FDA-approved peanut allergy drug couldn't find enough patients to survive.

Bought for $3.2B but its core mission — curing cystic fibrosis — was quietly killed.

Building a marketplace for genomic data means convincing hospital systems to sell what they think they should give for free.

Scaffold-free bioprinting hit a regulatory wall before reaching patients.

One patient death in Phase 1 triggered a confidence collapse that no funding round could reverse.

NIH grants and NIAID partnerships couldn't bridge the valley of death for this antibody diagnostics startup.

The AWS for biology labs burned through $18M proving that robot pipettes don't scale like cloud servers.

Personalized gut health — until the FBI arrived

Zero benefit on every endpoint: Aquinox's bladder drug imploded in Phase 2b, wiping 80% of market cap in hours.

Bioprinting human organs was science — the business model was fiction.

Bioprinting breast tissue for cancer survivors — a noble mission that ran out of runway.

Blood testing. Miniaturized. Fictional.

The injectable drug delivery startup that raised $250M, won deals with AstraZeneca and Hikma, and collapsed after its CEO was charged with securities fraud.

Transient gene therapy efficacy triggered immune responses that killed Dimension's hemophilia program.

A 7-3 FDA panel vote against their lead antibiotic sent Cempra into a terminal collapse.

The HSP90 inhibitor biotech that failed its Phase 3 lung cancer trial and reverse-merged into Madrigal Pharmaceuticals.

Fancy nanoparticles couldn't beat plain old docetaxel — BIND's targeted drug delivery story fell apart in Phase 2.

Hearing health startup shut down abruptly after tinnitus drug failed

Costa Rica biotech where CONIS takes 24 months for trial approval, CCSS only buys from approved international pharma, and Medtronic/Boston Scientific use US regulatory pathways

Immuno-oncology startup shut down days after failed fundraise

AI-powered digital stethoscope company stalled as hospital adoption moved at hospital speed

The genetic testing company that made genomics affordable burned through $2B+ trying to scale and filed for liquidation in 2024.

Geothermal heat pump startup spun out of Google X failed on installer economics

Medicaid-focused primary care startup burned through $1B before restructuring

Immunovia spent 15 years developing a blood test to detect pancreatic cancer early — then its pivotal trial failed in 2022 and the stock lost 80 percent overnight, ending the clinical program that had raised 150 million dollars.

Weight loss biotech went public via SPAC at 1.7 billion dollars with an FDA-approved product but discovered that manufacturing and reimbursement economics made commercial success structurally impossible.

PTSD nightmare disruption device raised $25M but payer reimbursement coverage never materialized

Oncology pipeline shut overnight after lead drug failed

Israeli computational genomics pioneer that spent 30 years predicting drug targets and never produced a successful drug.

COVID testing unicorn collapsed when pandemic demand ended and its health insurance pivot failed

Knee pain drug spent a decade in trials and died without FDA approval

Harvard-born stapled peptide biotech that failed Phase 2 trials and wound down after 14 years.

Remote patient monitoring startup collapsed as hospital customers stalled deployments

Mexico biotech with 36-month COFEPRIS approval while IMSS required 5-year track record and BIRMEX had exclusive mandate for vaccine production

The MIT nanoparticle drug delivery startup that raised 100 million dollars and filed for bankruptcy after clinical failures

Neoantigen vaccine pioneer merged into BioNTech and its independent programs quietly discontinued.

AI pathology diagnostics startup raised $145M but FDA clearance delays killed commercial momentum

The rare disease biotech that couldn't cross the valley of death

The San Diego oncology biotech targeting virus-associated cancers that raised $175M and wound down in 2023 after its lead program failed in clinical trials

AI drug discovery unicorn burned through cash as its pipeline of AI-identified candidates repeatedly failed clinical trials

Peter Thiel-backed psychedelic medicine company that went public at $2.3B and collapsed 93% by 2024.

Surgical mesh biotech lost market share to larger device companies and burned through cash

Synthetic biology company raised over 800 million dollars and IPO at 3.8 billion before revealing its flagship product was commercially useless just two months after going public.

Swiss antibody platform biotech that raised $280M and shut down after Phase 1 trial failures in cancer.

Mitochondria therapeutics pioneer dissolved after never reaching clinical proof

Rent-to-own real estate startup imploded as rates ended the model

COVID antibody treatment maker backed by GSK that raised $1.5B and lost 90% of its value when COVID demand collapsed.

The exosome drug delivery pioneer that raised 300 million dollars and filed for Chapter 11

Gene editing for metabolic disease — ran out of runway three years from approval

Waltham's tumor-targeted cytokine biotech dissolved after Phase 1 trial results disappointed

Wearable exoskeleton startup for warehouse workers ran out of capital before enterprise contracts scaled

Oral cancer drug developer destroyed by FDA Complete Response Letter

Colombia biopharma that needed 36 months for INVIMA approval while ELaboratorio crowded out private pharma in public procurement

Biotech startup producing spider silk proteins and mushroom leather to replace animal and synthetic materials in luxury fashion and consumer goods

Radius Health got its osteoporosis drug FDA approved in 2017 — and still filed for Chapter 11 in 2022 because the commercial launch never paid back the 440 million dollars spent developing it.

Cultivated beef pioneer backed by SoftBank that cut 50% of staff when regulatory approvals stalled.

Achaogen spent 15 years developing a new antibiotic, won FDA approval in June 2018 — and filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in April 2019, just 10 months after approval, because hospital purchasing refused to pay for its drug.

The biotech that aimed to replace chemotherapy in bone marrow transplants and dissolved after pipeline failures

Humanigen bet everything on lenzilumab becoming the cytokine-storm drug that saved COVID patients — the FDA said no in June 2021, and the company filed for Chapter 11 in January 2022.

Uruguay genomics for a 3.5M population market where INIA covers cattle genomics, MSP covers public health, and Illumina/BGI serve the private consumer market

Phage therapy biotech raised $125M and collapsed after FDA rejected clinical trial results

Blood-clot drug startup raised $300M, ran a Phase 3 trial that failed catastrophically, and had to merge for survival within 90 days.

Gamida Cell spent 26 years developing a stem cell therapy for blood cancers, won FDA approval in 2023 — and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in March 2024 because the approved drug could not generate enough revenue to survive.

PARP inhibitor oncology company raised $700M and went bankrupt when FDA restricted its drug indications