Top 25 Biotech Companies Heading Into 2026

The green shoots suggesting a comeback was in sight for biotech stocks last year have mostly grown into proverbial flowering plants—but one company’s precipitous year-over-year decline in market capitalization (share price times the number of outstanding shares) sent the total market cap of the largest public biotechs skidding nearly six percent.

As of December 8, the total market cap of the Top 25 biotechs ranked by GEN reached $1.801.48 trillion, down from the combined $1.909 trillion tallied a year ago. This year’s A-List marks the second time in three years that the total value of the Top 25 biotechs showed a one-year decline.

This year’s decline largely reflects a $289.87 billion or 58% drop in market cap for Novo Nordisk, reflecting challenges stemming from Eli Lilly’s faster-growing sales of glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist-based obesity and diabetes drugs—a key factor in Novo Nordisk’s failed attempt to wrest Metsera from Pfizer, which ran into potential headwinds from Washington.

The obesity/diabetes drug giant topped last year’s A-List with a market cap of $497.01 billion, but lost its crown this year to Thermo Fisher Scientific, whose market cap rose 5% from a year ago. When Novo Nordisk’s market cap is excluded, the remaining top 24 biotechs rose by a combined 12.9% during 2025.

That overall jump contributed to the year-over-year share price increases by the top three exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which became apparent in October. The top biotech-focused ETF with $8.661 billion in assets, the SPDR S&P Biotech ETF (NYSE Arca: XBI), rose 23% year-over-year to $121.19, while iShares Biotechnology ETF (NASDAQ: IBB), the second-largest biotech fund with $7.866 billion in assets, climbed 18% to $167.09, and ARK Genomic Revolution ETF (NYSE Arca: ARKG), which has about $1.3 billion in assets, gained 17% to $30.86.

Overall, 19 of this year’s top 25 biotechs recorded year-over-year gains in market cap, with 11 of those gainers enjoying double-digit increases. Two companies enjoyed triple-digit jumps: Chinese-based Hansoh Pharma reaped the fruits of rising profits, a shift from generics to innovative drugs, and potential billion-dollar-plus collaborations with Merck & Co. and Roche. U.S.-based Insmed benefited from FDA approval of its non-cystic fibrosis bronchiectasis drug Brinsupri (brensocatib) and positive Phase IIb trial data for its pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) candidate treprostinil palmitil inhalation powder (TPIP).

Of the six biotechs that lost market cap in 2025, Novo Nordisk showed the biggest one-year drop, while three other companies (Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, CSL, and Daiichi Sankyo) fell by double digits.

This A-List does not include pharmaceutical companies that have a heritage of small-molecule, nonbiologic drug development. (In recent years, GEN has covered these companies through a separate list.)

The smallest company listed this year has a market cap of over $28 billion, about the same as the 7^th-ranked company on GEN’s first A-List of top 25 biotechs, published in 2012.

Just missing the list at number 26 is Biogen, which had a market cap of $26.47 billion on December 8, followed by BioNTech ($23.39 million), biopharma royalties acquirer Royalty Pharma ($21.98 billion), United Therapeutics ($21.69 billion), and Sichuan Biokin Pharmaceutical (CNY 151.306 billion [$21.40 billion]).

Below those are two companies that have appeared on GEN Top 25 Biotech A-Lists in recent years: No. 31-ranked Genmab (DKK 126.648 billion [$19.75 billion]), which last appeared on GEN’s Top 25 Biotech Companies of 2024—and No. 32-ranked Illumina, the sequencing giant whose market cap has tumbled nearly 62% over the past four years, from $50.9 billion in market cap (and the No. 10 position) on GEN’s Top 25 Biotech Companies of 2022.

References

1. BeOne Medicines was rebranded from BeiGene between November 2024 and June 2025, with the U.S. subsidiary changing its name to BeOne Medicines USA on March 17, 2025.
2. Market cap figure rounded off from $32.324 billion.
3. Market cap figure rounded off from $32.316 billion.

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