Biotech Stocks and Longevity Investing: Trends to Track

In 2025, biotechnology stocks had their best year since the pandemic, with the market sector’s two major indexes – the SDPR S&P Biotech ETX (NYSE:XBI) and iShares Biotech ETF (NYSE:IBB) – returning between 28% and 36%, more than double the S&P 500’s roughly 18%. That came after three consecutive years of underperformance. Was biotech’s strong 2025 a fluke or part of a sustained rebound? A few key trends might offer direction.

As biotech stocks staged their comeback in 2025, private investment in longevity science more than doubled, hitting $8.49 billion across 325 deals. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved 50 new drugs in 2024 and 46 in 2025, including the first drug class that researchers have labeled potential longevity therapeutics. Big pharma spent more than $65 billion acquiring biotech companies through October 2025, surpassing full-year totals for 2024, 2022, and 2021.

Demographics serve as a strong foundation for potential growth in biotech and longevity. The global population aged 60 and older will reach 1.4 billion by 2030. The number of people aged 80 and older will nearly triple by 2050. The patients are here, and more are coming – and biotech stocks are increasingly the companies building the treatments they will need.

Biotech stocks staged a 2025 comeback

After three years of flat or negative returns, biotech stocks broke out in 2025. The biotech trends discussed above and throughout suggest that reversal could be more structural, meaning driven by lasting forces like an aging population and a mounting patent cliff, rather than cyclical, meaning just a temporary bounce.

• Biotech indexes** outpaced the S&P 500 by a wide margin in 2025.** The SDPR S&P Biotech ETX returned 35.9%, the iShares Biotech ETF returned 28.0%, and the Nasdaq Biotech Index (NASDAQ:NBI) gained 31.5%, compared to the S&P 500’s 17.9%.
• Merger and acquisition (M&A) activity more than doubled 2024 levels. Biopharma M&A deal value through October 2025 hit $65 billion to $70 billion, exceeding full-year totals for 2024, 2022, and 2021. At least seven deals topped $8 billion.
• Big pharma faces a patent cliff. More than $300 billion in branded drug revenue faces patent expiration between 2025 and 2030. When a patent expires, cheaper generic versions can enter the market. When that happens, the original drug’s sales can collapse quickly, so large pharma companies try to replace that revenue before it disappears. Biotech companies develop more than 70% of newly approved drugs, up from around 50% a decade ago, which makes acquiring a biotech one of the fastest ways to fill that gap.

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Smaller biotech companies with drugs still in clinical trials are what big pharma is trying to buy, with acquisition offers coming in above 60% to 120% of the stock prices, even though companies don’t have drugs on the shelves. For investors who held shares in those acquired companies, that has meant seeing their stock jump by more than half overnight. There is no guarantee future deals will look the same, but the pace of acquisitions in 2025 suggests large pharma’s appetite for biotech pipelines is not slowing down.

Longevity investment: Where science and capital are going

Longevity is an investment category forming around the science of aging, and private capital, research, and the FDA are moving quickly.

• Private investment in longevity science more than doubled in a single year. Global investment in longevity science reached $8.49 billion across 325 deals in 2024, up from $3.82 billion in 2023.
• GLP-1 drugs** are expanding from weight loss into longevity territory.** GLP-1s are a class of drugs that includes semaglutide, sold as Wegovy and Ozempic, and tirzepatide, sold as Zepbound and Mounjaro. Originally approved for diabetes and obesity, they have since received FDA approval for cardiovascular risk reduction, obstructive sleep apnea, fatty liver disease, and oral obesity treatment. A Swiss Re model estimates that GLP-1 drugs could reduce all-cause U.S. mortality by 6.4% by 2045, making it the first drug class with implications at that scale. The GLP-1 market alone is projected to grow from $55 billion today to $150 billion by 2030.
• The FDA formally recognized lifespan extension as a valid clinical goal for the first time. In February 2025, Loyal’s LOY-002, a drug for aging dogs, became the first treatment to clear that regulatory bar, marking a milestone for the longevity field’s credibility with regulators.

The drugs making some of the most money in biotech right now, like GLP-1s, cancer immunotherapies, and gene medicines, are the same ones showing early signs of potentially extending healthy life. Longevity investing used to mean putting capital behind unproven science. Increasingly, it means owning companies that are already generating revenue, like Novo Nordisk (NVO +0.77%), whose GLP-1 drug Wegovy is already one of the best-selling drugs in the world, according to industry publication Drug Discovery and Development.

What investors tracking biotech and longevity should watch

Biotech stocks enter 2026 with real momentum. The industry is still recovering from a brutal three-year run leading into 2025, big pharma is paying a significant premium to acquire pipeline companies, which are companies with drugs under development, and the FDA is approving new drugs at near-record rates. The sector is grappling with patent expirations as longevity science is gaining traction.

Demographics create a demand floor that isn’t a forecast – the population data is set and is difficult to ignore. Adults 65 and older represent 17% of the U.S. population but make up 37% of all healthcare spending. Individuals aged both 60+ and 80+ will make up a growing share of the global population in the coming decades. That means each passing year brings a larger, older cohort of patients who need treatment for chronic conditions that affect 95% of adults over 60 as well as greater demand for longevity drugs.

For individual investors tracking the intersection of biotech stocks and longevity, the data points in the same direction across many angles: drug performance, new-drug pipelines, private capital, government support, and demographics. The question is no longer whether longevity is a viable investment theme but how much of the opportunity is already priced in and how much is still ahead.

FAQs

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Sources

• The Association of Investment Companies (2025). “M&A activity drives momentum in biotech and healthcare.”
• BioSpace (2026). “The Five Biggest Biopharma Takeovers of 2025.”
• BioXconomy (2025). “BioXconomy’s top 10 M&A deals of 2025.”
• Businesswire (2025). “Loyal Receives FDA Acceptance of Reasonable Expectation of Effectiveness for Senior Dog Lifespan Extension.”
• Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (2025). “NHE Fact Sheet.”
• Drug Discovery and Development (2025). “Top 25 drugs by sales: 2025 H1”
• Evaluate (2025). “Obesity and GLP-1 Dealmaking: Strategic Trends and Market Signals.”
• Evaluate (2025). “Portfolio Tactics to Scale the $300bn Patent Cliff.”
• FDA (2026). “New Drug Therapy Approvals 2025.”
• FierceBiotech (2025). “2025 M&A up in value and deal count after year of ‘conservatism and recovery’: Leerink Partners.”
• JPMorgan (2026). “Biopharma and medtech activity in Q4 2025.”
• Longevity.Technology (2025). “Longevity investment more than doubled to $8.5bn in 2024.”
• Longevity.Technology (2026). “FDA rewrites drug approval rules and longevity stands to gain.”
• Nature Biotechnology (2025). “Are GLP-1s the first longevity drugs?”
• Swiss Re (2025). “GLP-1 drugs may reduce mortality by up to 6.4% in the US by 2045.”
• Vision Lifesciences (2026). “Pharma M&A Tracker 2026: Every Major Deal, Decoded.”

About the Author

Jack Caporal is the Research Director for The Motley Fool and Motley Fool Money. Jack leads efforts to identify and analyze trends shaping investing and personal financial decisions across the United States. His research has appeared in thousands of media outlets including Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, Bloomberg, and CNBC, and has been cited in congressional testimony. He previously covered business and economic trends as a reporter and policy analyst in Washington, D.C. He serves as Chair of the Trade Policy Committee at the World Trade Center in Denver, Colorado. He holds a B.A. degree in International Relations with a concentration in International Economics from Michigan State University.

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Jack Caporal has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Novo Nordisk. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.