October 15, 2025

Dos and Don’ts for Public Biotechs’ Websites and IR Websites

Most executives don’t realize that a public biotech’s website is actually two separate sites seamlessly rolled into one. The co-joining occurs upon IPO when the (formally) private company’s  website is supplemented with predominantly automated content associated with its public listing – most often labeled in the navigation as the “Investor” pages. Concurrent with the issuance of the company’s pricing announcement, this new part of the website goes live with content that includes a 10–15-minute delayed stock price and chart, the company’s SEC filings, board committees, charters, FAQs, and more.

While the “old” part of your website remains managed by your former webmaster (and/or outside designers), the IR portion is typically managed by your IR partner in partnership with either Notified or Q4.

Importantly, your website remains the first point of contact for most investors researching a potential purchase of your shares. As such, it’s important that your site looks professional, as any deficiencies can cast doubt on your company’s prospects.

Here are some golden rules to follow once your biotech is public.

1. Media pages make you look amateur.

Most private biotechs have a page on their website summarizing and displaying links to media coverage the company has generated. Most biotechs choose to erase this page when they go public. Why? Well, media coverage of public companies is expected and simply doesn’t warrant its own page. Moreover, investors can find your media coverage on Google or via ChatGPT, on Yahoo Finance, Google Finance, etc.

Importantly, after IPO the news page on your new IR website is automatically updated with press releases issued by you and containing your ticker. By contrast, a media page would still need to be manually updated.

2. Post covering analysts, not their research or recommendations.

While it’s normal for biotechs to list the equity analysts that cover them, it is ill-advised to include their recommendations, price targets, or to post PDFs of their reports. Sometimes I get asked by management why they can’t do just that, and I explain to them that by doing so they appropriate the investment recommendation, and further note that it is not their job, nor is it advisable, to provide investment advice to the general public.

Equity research reports are proprietary to the bank for which an analyst works and are only sent to the bank’s customers after appropriate background checks and know your customer (KYC) procedures have been completed.

3. Frequently asked questions (FAQs) stave off retail inquiries.

Most IR websites have a list of around 25 investor FAQs along with your company’s answers. Having these displayed predominantly on your website can avoid a large number of similar inquiries from retail and institutional investors that would otherwise clog up your inbox.

Additionally, it is a good repository for a biotech’s C-suite – in the future, you may not remember who your transfer agent or registrar are, but if you take a quick look at the FAQs on your IR site, you’ll find the answer in no time.

Note: it’s good housekeeping to periodically do a quick review of your FAQs to make sure that none of the answers have changed.

4. Take webcasts down after 180 days or when superseded by a new event.

Having webcast replays available on your IR website means investors who missed the live event can still access it at their convenience afterwards. Leaving this content up too long, however, creates  potential liability, especially if guidance changes. As such, it’s good practice to take webcast replays down from your IR site after 180 days, or earlier if the event has been superseded by a similar event.

Also note that these links usually expire after a year and leaving them in place will leave investors with a series of dead links, which does not look good.

5. Replace your corporate presentation regularly.

Rather than leave a library of prior corporate presentations on your website (which again can create liability and cause confusion), best practice is to only post one deck (in PDF form) at any time, in addition to perhaps the deck that accompanied your most recent clinical data announcement.

6. Don’t include photos of employees or pets.

While it might be tempting to plaster your website with photos of your team in action, please consider that at some point a certain percentage of them will move on to new pastures. This then leaves you with a website peppered with ex (and potentially disgruntled) employees. Not only is that a bad look, but you also risk being sued by those former employees for still using their likeness. Instead, stick to graphics and stock photos to build a website that doesn’t continuously need updating.

Additionally, try and keep pets (especially dogs) off your website. Animal testing remains a sore spot for the general public (regardless of how many human lives are being saved by our industry) and the visual association of your team with animals (no matter how cute) is counterproductive. Yes, you may have a dog-friendly workplace, but people find it hard to see your smiling fur babies without also picturing their less fortunate cousins.

7. Reuse colors, photographic assets, and graphics from your website in your corporate deck.

Your website is the first place investors typically go to when learning about your company. How it looks is important and this is why biotechs spend a large amount of time and money assembling a site that looks professional, as expected, and at least as good as peer companies’ websites.

However, this investment can be leveraged further. Typically, you either own or have a license to use all the media assets that your website features. Flow these through to your corporate deck (in PowerPoint) so that you create seamless branding for your company – one that also saves time, because you can update two important IR materials at the same time.

8. One-page “fact sheets” are a waste of time.

First of all, if you are going to produce a one-page overview of your company, do not under any circumstances call it a “fact sheet.” Such a document is typically littered with forward looking statements or promises that should never be characterized as “facts” to someone making an investment decision.

My theory is that one-page fact sheets were invented by PR companies, because no institutional investor (think Ph.D. level of education) is going to be satiated by such a summary and IR firms know this. Moreover, they become outdated incredibly quickly and often end up oversimplifying an investment thesis because of the need to fit it on a single page.

Have I provided them for clients in the past? Yes, when forced. Has anyone ever read them? Doubtful. Do efficient companies eventually wake up and see they are obsolete and a waste of time? Always.

9. Test your whistleblower hotline every quarter.

As mentioned in a prior blog, every public company should test their whistleblower hotline once a quarter, with more extensive testing occurring once a year. Whistleblowers typically access your hotline via your website – with the option of calling a designated telephone number and leaving a voice message or filling out a web-based form. These should be displayed clearly, but not in obviously open view (to avoid overuse/misuse).

Most companies choose to include whistleblower contact information in the text of their Code of Business Conduct and Ethics document, which typically exists in PDF form on a biotech’s IR page under “Documents and Charters.”

10. Only post your C-suite on your team page, lest it become a shopping list for headhunters.

Private biotechs typically include almost every employee on their website. Perhaps this is because it creates a sense of camaraderie, or acts as a rite of passage when new employees are brought into the fold? Either way, it is entirely atypical, as well as unfeasible, as your workforce grows. Moreover, the more exhaustive it is, the more frequently it becomes outdated (requiring maintenance), and also the more likely it is that all your staff can be poached by rivals.

Once public, your Team page should just include your C-suite. Moreover, make sure the headshots you use are reproducible in style for any new hires, since homogenous headshots look infinitely more professional than a collection of non-matching iPhone selfies.

If your team works remotely, arrange for these headshots to be taken on a day when you are all together – such as a board meeting or perhaps at the J.P. Morgan healthcare conference.

11. Avoid putting your switchboard number on your website.

Once you’re a public company, your IR and PR partners will go to great lengths to help you designate which of your employees are authorized (and trained) to interface with investors and the media. This is to avoid retail or institutional investor inquiries, or media inquiries, randomly arriving at the desks of untrained employees who have the potential to (inadvertently) reveal material nonpublic information.

By all means, include your company’s office addresses on your website to help facilitate visiting guests, but please do not put your primary switchboard number (or any other number) on your website.

Note that most companies can funnel legitimate business inquires using forwarding email addresses that include careers@name.com, investors@name.com, media@name.com, partnering@name.com, or clinical@name.com.

12. Keep it simple.

There is a reason biotech websites look similar. This is because your experienced service providers and partners have, over the years, honed the essential requirements for a website and IR website – including navigation – and cut away all the unnecessaries.

Try and make your website look like your peers.

If you must have a dynamic graphic element for your website (moving video, etc.), keep it as simple as possible. Generally, I have found videos and animations to be a complicating and expensive waste of time. As an aside, never include videos in your corporate presentation.

13. Rely on automation for the posting of news releases to your website.

As a private biotech, someone within your company (or at one of your service providers) manually uploads press releases to your website.

When you go public, choose to allow press releases to be automatically added to your IR website (this is done by inclusion of your ticker (NASDAQ: ABCD or NYSE: ABCD) in the body of your release.

Before you can transition to this new protocol, however, you will need to decide how many years’ worth of old press releases to migrate over to the new page (which will exist on the IR portion of your website, replacing what was previously a page on your old website).

Be brutal. Especially if you took a long time to get to the clinic or go public. Investment decisions are not made on press releases you put out five or ten years ago, and more often than not, these can be distracting from your current message.