In August, family-office investors executed 52 direct investments in private companies, and roughly one in five went to biotech startups, according to Fintrx, a private wealth intelligence platform.
Data from Fintrx underscores the pace at Stanley Druckenmiller's Duquesne Family Office this year, with at least four investments made in pharmaceuticals or life sciences companies. Last month, Duquesne joined a $90 million Series C for Epicrispr Biotechnologies.
Epicrispr, founded eight years ago, is developing a new gene therapy to treat facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy, or FSHD, a rare muscle disorder.
In August, Jeff Bezos's namesake family office participated in a $188 million Series E round for LifeMine Therapeutics, which applies AI to study fungal genomes to discover drugs. LifeMine is currently testing a compound intended to prevent organ failure in transplant patients. Bill Gates's venture firm, Gates Frontier, also took part in the round.
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Biotech funding has found a higher gear. Silicon Valley Bank estimates that, in the first half of 2026, U.S. and European biopharma startups brought in $12.6 billion - the strongest half-year in five years. The mix is shifting, though: fewer checks overall, especially for early-stage companies, and more capital directed to teams with drug candidates already in testing. SVB's analysis draws on its own and PitchBook's data, and the bank now operates as a division of First Citizens Bank following its 2023 collapse and sale.
What is pulling money off the sidelines? AI helps. As Druckenmiller said in a January interview with Morgan Stanley, "I knew because I've been on the board of Memorial Sloan Kettering for 30 years, that probably the best use case out there of AI is biotech through drug discovery, diagnostics, monitoring everything."
