Biotech has always been a little unconventional, but, as the industry’s bear market drags on, efforts to stay afloat are reaching a whole new level.
The current landscape, defined by a sealed IPO window, constrained financing and regulatory uncertainty, has triggered the shuttering of at least 11 biotechs in 2025 so far by Fierce Biotech’s count.
Companies are doing everything possible to avoid joining their peers that have had to wind down. There are numerous ways to save or boost cash—such as the commonly implemented workforce reductions and royalty deals—but we’ve gathered some of the more peculiar strategies below.
A waste management and residential property purchase
Some of the more unusual efforts to stay solvent have come from Windtree Therapeutics, a Pennsylvania-based biotech with a cardiovascular and cancer pipeline.
Windtree acquired a waste management business in Michigan as part of its “drive toward overall profitability,” according to a June 10 release. The deal is part of an agreement to acquire Titan Environmental Services, which is expected to close later this year. Titan provides waste collection and disposal services and is slated to become a subsidiary of the biotech, under the name Windtree Environmental Services.
The move falls under the biotech’s “redefined corporate strategy,” which includes seeking opportunities in a variety of growing industries to boost cash flow.
Part of this approach involves securing the rights to buy a 436-unit residential property in Houston, according to a May 16 release. The conditional transaction made with an unnamed real estate investment group is designed to “provide consistent revenue to the company while it continues to develop its biotech pipeline drug candidates.”
Some of Windtree’s other strategies are less surprising, like looking to acquire FDA-approved assets to build out revenue and support pipeline development or trying to sell off certain candidates. And it looks like those efforts have paid off in part—the biotech said June 11 that it had received a $7 million upfront offer for its preclinical oncology drug candidate. The buyer wasn’t disclosed, but Windtree said the deal includes up to $130 million in biobucks.
Slashing staff salaries
Biotechs facing tough times often lay off staff in an attempt to cut costs and stave off a shutdown. Rather than depart with any of its crew, Shuttle Pharmaceuticals took a different approach. The cancer-focused, Maryland-based company shrank the salaries of its staff by 70%, according to a May 21 Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing. Even Shuttle’s command center wasn’t spared, with the company’s C-suite also taking the payday hit, including interim CEO Christopher Cooper. The biotech had $4.5 million on hand at the end of March, according to a May 15 press release.
Shuttle’s therapeutics wing includes four candidates, all preclinical except for ropidoxuridine, which is currently in a phase 2 trial for glioblastoma. Ropidoxuridine is a type of pyrimidine, one of the constituents of DNA and RNA, which is designed to make cancer cells more sensitive to radiation therapy if incorporated into their genomes.
Shuttle was first launched in 2012, spearheaded by scientists from Georgetown University Medical Center. The company also has a diagnostics arm with two assets currently in development for prostate cancer.
CEOs injecting their cash into companies
At least one CEO is taking matters into his own hands to keep his company afloat. Amro Albanna, chief executive and co-founder of Aditxt, loaned $233,000 to the company on May 22, according to a filing with the SEC. The loan is accruing interest at an annual rate of 7.5%, and Aditxt must repay the full amount by Nov. 22.
Aditxt will need to pay back its leader sooner if the company begins any bankruptcy actions, like seeking to reorganize or liquidate, according to the filing. The firm had $476,416 on hand as of March 31, according to a May 15 SEC filing.
Aditxt bills itself as a “social innovation platform” with several healthcare subsidiaries. One subsidiary, Adimune, is developing an immunotherapy to help patients’ bodies accept organ transplants and skin grafts. Another, Pearsanta, is using mitochondrial DNA for early detection of disease, while a third, Adivue, is working on neurodegenerative and neuroinflammatory conditions.
NKGen Biotech’s CEO, Paul Song, M.D., is also paying out of his own pocket to advance his cash-strapped biotech’s midstage cell therapy trial.
Unlike Aditxt’s leader, however, Song isn’t just offering a loan. The NKGen CEO invested $2.65 million of his own money after the biotech delayed filing its annual report in March, telling authorities it was unable to meet the deadline “without unreasonable effort or expense.”
Song came to the rescue, investing $2.65 million of his own money in hopes of pulling the company out of the red. The CEO had profited off the sale of Fuse Biotherapeutics, a separate biotech that he had co-founded and led, and used those proceeds to support his current workplace.
The investment will help cover the expenses NKGen incurs as a public company and go toward the biotech’s phase 1/2 trial. The ongoing trial is studying SNK01, a natural killer cell therapy SNK01 in people with moderate Alzheimer’s disease.
Canadian biotech Aptose Biosciences also turned to its leader to stay solvent. CEO and Chairman William Rice, Ph.D., provided a “short-term cash advance" to prop up the company as it seeks funding from other potential partners. The money will be used to pay Aptose's staff as well as continue the development of oral kinase inhibitor tuspetinib, which is being studied in a phase 1/2 trial for acute myeloid leukemia in combination with venetoclax and azacitidine.
But even with Rice's dough, the company warned that it will soon run out of cash if it doesn't get more funding soon. The Toronto-based biotech ended March with $4.7 million on hand, which it had only expected to fund R&D costs until the end of May 2025.