Dear Reader,
This is Dylan Jovine with Behind the Markets.
Happy Tuesday.
Today is Tuesday, December 30th.
Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve — which is exciting in its own right — but today, I want to talk about Biotech Insider and do a real, honest review of our track record this year.
And look, it has definitely been tough for us in this service over the past year. We’ve been slogging through mud for most of it.
And yet… you wouldn’t necessarily know that if all you looked at were the numbers.
Because on paper, our average return for 2025 on closed trades was 59.48%.
That sounds incredible, right?
59.48%.
But let me explain the truth behind that number, because context matters.
We only closed two positions in Biotech Insider this year.
Two.
One of them was Eli Lilly, which we recommended back at $434 and eventually sold for a 151% gain.
The other was Novo Nordisk, which we recommended around $83, and exited around $52, for about a 34% loss.
So when you average those together, you get that 59% number.
Normally, we’re closing a dozen or more trades in a year.
This year wasn’t like that. That’s why I always warn you — be very careful when somebody proudly waves around a “one-year track record.” One year doesn’t tell the whole story.
Yes, the number is technically accurate.
Yes, mathematically we did 59% on closed trades.
But is that the truth of what happened this year?
Not really.
Because the honest reality is that for the first nine months of this year, it was tough sledding for us in biotech. Hard. Frustrating. Slow. Irritating.
We weren’t alone — the entire healthcare and biotech sector was in pain — but that doesn’t mean it felt good while we lived it.
The good news is, as the year came to an end, we finally started to see life again.
The Amicus takeover is a great example. Capital is flowing back in. Smart buyers are stepping up. We’re seeing green again. And that’s incredibly encouraging as we move into 2026.
And I’ll tell you something else — if I were younger, I probably would’ve sold more this year. I probably would’ve panicked or gotten impatient. But experience (and yes, the gray hair) has taught me something very important:
You do not sell good assets just because the market is having a tantrum.
You don’t dump quality companies at cheap prices just to stay busy.
In fact — you buy them.
That’s how you actually make money in this business.
So yeah, lesson number one from this year:
Don’t obsess over a 1-year performance number.
Anyone can look brilliant for a year. Anyone can have a lucky stretch. Anyone can cherry-pick two trades and brag about a huge percentage.
What matters is the full body of work. What matters is long-term consistency.
And this is where I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve done together.
If you look at our FULL eight-year track record… the real record… not one year… not cherry-picked… the whole thing…
Biotech Insider has averaged 49% gains on closed trades.
Forty-nine percent. Over eight years.
That is something we can be proud of.
And here’s something even crazier — even if next year we sold everything at a 90% loss (which of course isn’t going to happen) — we’d still have about a 34% average return since inception.
That’s remarkable.
That’s discipline.
That’s process.
And I am deeply proud of that.
So where do we go from here?
Into what I believe could be an incredibly exciting period.
We are already seeing early signs of money returning to the biotech space. Investors are coming back. Big Pharma is shopping again. Deals are moving. Takeovers are happening.
Healthcare and biotech remain the cheapest they’ve been relative to the rest of the market in 30 years.
And then there’s AI.
I cannot emphasize this enough:
AI is about to completely reshape biotech.
Earlier this year, we had confusion...RFK headlines. “Make America Healthy Again.” Medicare negotiation worries. Fear. Panic. Uncertainty. Capital fled the space. Nobody wanted to touch biotech.
Now clarity is coming back. Washington has moved. The “big beautiful bill” brought fresh confidence. Capital is returning. People are saying, “Wait a minute, these companies are deeply undervalued.”
And now AI is stepping in.
Think about this…
A typical drug today takes 10 years to develop, costs $2–3 billion, and then fails most of the time.
AI has the potential to shrink timelines dramatically.
Imagine cutting that 10 years down to 3… or even 1. Imagine cutting costs by 50–70%.
Imagine how much more innovation that creates.
Instead of companies betting everything on a single $3 billion, 10-year gamble… suddenly they can explore 5–10 times more therapies.
The pipeline expands, breakthroughs increase, and wealth creation accelerates.
That’s why I remain incredibly bullish on this space.
And why I need to tell you about the stock leading the charge in AI drug discovery.
So if you haven’t seen my new report on it yet... Check it out now.
Now one more interesting thing for the biotech nerds like me — COVID also quietly revolutionized the clinical trial playbook. Rolling submissions. Smarter data. Adaptive trial design. Regulatory flexibility in real time.
Warp Speed wasn’t just a political slogan — it permanently changed how we think about getting medicine to patients.
Combine that with AI?
The future is enormous.
And that’s why I remain so optimistic.
We took our punches this year. We stood our ground. We didn’t panic. We didn’t dump great companies at clearance prices. We protected value. And as the cycle turns — we are positioned extremely well.
So yeah… 2025 was a weird year.
Hard early. Encouraging late.
Misleading if you only look at the headline number…
But deeply validating if you understand the long arc of what we do.
And I feel great about where we’re heading.
That’s all I’ve got for today.
Have a wonderful day.
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