The Medicine Maker, the global magazine covering biopharmaceutical development and manufacturing since 2007, published an extended interview with Ali Pashazadeh, Founder and CEO of Treehill Partners, on 18 August 2026. Conducted by Associate Editor Jessica Allerton and James Strachan, the interview runs as part of the publication’s continuing series on the changing investment environment in cell and gene therapy. It examines how tighter capital, shifting investor expectations and the rise of Asian biotech are forcing Western companies, investors and pharmaceutical leaders to reconsider established models.
A pipeline under pressure
Pashazadeh described a sector in which the flow of biotech innovation into large pharmaceutical pipelines has slowed at precisely the point where it is most needed. Many biotechs are holding late-stage assets without the funding or the internal expertise to run Phase III, after four weak years for public markets and crossover capital, while contract research costs have remained high. Smaller acquisition targets that once filled pipeline gaps have become scarce, and companies facing the loss of blockbuster products have limited near-term replacements. Specialty pharma has performed well, he noted, but the segment is concentrated and increasingly exposed to tariff, supply-chain and therapeutic-area risk.
The new competitive baseline
Asked how China and Korea have built ecosystems capable of moving faster than many Western companies, Pashazadeh drew a distinction between the two routes. Korea’s sector grew from heavy government investment roughly a decade ago and is methodical and scientifically rigorous, though many companies advance only to Phase IIa before seeking a licensing partner. China has followed a path closer to its automotive industry: rapid scaling through years of iteration, with contract research and manufacturing groups building capability on Western programmes before applying that infrastructure to their own pipelines. He cited reported Chinese timelines in which a molecule moves from discovery to a fifteen-patient Phase I study for under one million dollars, against the five to ten million and several years often required in Europe or the United States.
What investors now underwrite
The differentiator, in Pashazadeh’s assessment, is shifting from manufacturing scale to management quality. Private equity faces a harder environment because exits have become less predictable, and investors are looking for teams capable of operating globally and adapting commercially as markets move. Where five to seven competing drugs may launch within a single year, a target product profile that looks attractive today can become commercially irrelevant within five, which places a premium on scenario analysis. He offered the view that 80 to 85 percent of current biotechs may not exist in five years, replaced by a new generation of companies, investors and management teams — a renewal he characterised as healthy, and ultimately better for patients, because it concentrates capital on research with a realistic route to the clinic.
The advisory gap
Pashazadeh also addressed where firms such as Treehill now sit. Organisations that would once have turned automatically to the established banks and strategy houses are increasingly seeking more entrepreneurial thinking and advisers “who can interpret where the curve is moving, not just describe the current landscape”. Treehill’s work alongside large contract research organisations gives the firm visibility of where pressure points are emerging across Phase I, II and III development. On strategy, he was direct: Treehill no longer advises companies to be purely US-centric. The United States remains the largest market and the FDA the gold standard, but development plans now need the flexibility to include Europe, Australia, China and other regions, with patient benefit rather than politics as the deciding principle.
Read the full interview on: https://themedicinemaker.com/issues/2026/articles/august/the-mindset-for-success-in-biopharmas-new-multipolar-world/
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