June 3, 2026

How Should Public Biotechs Think About Shareholder Targeting?

Biotech shareholder targeting is frequently treated like a scavenger hunt: pull a list, send outreach, take meetings, hope for magic.

That approach is how you end up with a calendar full of “nice conversations” and a shareholder register that does not change.

A real targeting strategy is not about volume. It is about probability.

Because in biotech, we do not have the tidy signposts that make targeting straightforward in other sectors. We do not have revenue, EBITDA, store counts, or unit economics.

We have biology, time, and risk. That means our targeting inputs must be different – and our discipline in constructing target lists must be greater.

A target list should be short, strategic, and board-ready

If your “target list” has 100 names, it is not a target list. It is a marketing list.

A true target list is typically 20–25 funds – investors you would be proud to show your board, and a shortlist against which you can easily measure progress.

It should be:

• Manageable (by you and those you share it with (bankers, corporate access desks).
• Measurable.
• Durable (it does not change every time a banker sends a new PDF of funds who recently raised money).

A target list is not a “quarterly exercise” in the sense of starting from scratch again every quarter. Instead, it is a living strategic document that you review quarterly.

Start with two kinds of comps

Most management teams default to competition when they think about comps: the best-in-class company, the category leader, the eventual commercial standard. This is often a list of publicly traded peers.

That can be useful – if funds want two horses in the same race (which may be the case if the disease vertical is sufficiently large – e.g., GLP-1s at the time of writing), or if we are hoping to convince funds to switch horses (less likely) – but it can also set you up for multiple meetings in which your counterpart is only in it for the competitive intelligence they can glean.

Additionally, some of your competitors might be mega-caps. Your owners will often look nothing like theirs.

For targeting, the more useful comp set is comparables: companies with similar traits – stage of development, market cap, modality, clinical risk, financing cadence, and ownership profile – even if they are not direct competitors.

In total, you might look at around 6-8 comps to generate enough quality investor names to target.

13Fs are necessary, but “current” is not sufficient

The 13Fs from the comp group you have assembled will give you a reasonably current list of investors to target. But do not stop at current holders.

A simple upgrade to this methodology is to also look at historical 13Fs to see who has owned your comp group – and potentially made money in doing so.

Funds rotate. Teams change. Mandates evolve. A fund that owned your sector a year ago already has familiarity with it – and familiarity is one of the most underrated drivers of institutional action.

So, look at the current 13F of your comparables and the 13F from 12 months ago when assembling your target list.

Do not let database labels mislead you

Investor databases (Ipreo and IR Insight) love to label funds based on their holdings/mandates with categories such as value, growth, GARP, hedge fund, etc.

Biotechs transcend those categories. Be mindful that an ascribed “style” label does not mean “does not buy pre-revenue biotech.”

Equally, an ascribed “hedge fund” label does not mean “will short you.”  Many of the highest-quality investors in the world are technically hedge funds with exceptional long books and deep scientific work underpinning them.

Target investors based on what they do in practice, not what a database calls them.

Financing does not change your targets – it changes the urgency with which you should meet with them

When a potential financing is approaching, companies often panic and broaden targeting to “anyone with cash.”

That is how you spend time with investors who have money but will never own you.

The best funds rarely invest after one meeting. As such, a financing is not the moment to introduce yourself for the first time. Instead, it is the moment to capitalize on relationships you have already built.

A near-term financing should tighten your execution against the same strategic target list – not expand it into a “kitchen sink” exercise.

Your best targets may already own you

Remember: existing shareholders can be some of your best targets, especially those with room to grow their position.

If they already know you and are underweight, it is your job to stay in front of them proactively – because increasing a position is often a smaller decision than initiating one.

As such, don’t exclude existing investors from your targeting list if there is the potential for them to increase their position by the same amount that a (smaller) new investor would initiate with.

Note however, that unless the above is true, existing large holders should not be on your targeting list. That’s not to say that they aren’t important and that you shouldn’t meet with them regularly, but they are not targets as we are defining them here.

One final warning: update your targeting list based on your interactions

As we mentioned, a fund that owns a “direct competitor” may take a meeting for competitive intelligence reasons. In narrow indications where there is likely one winner, be careful about spending repeated cycles trying to convert an investor who is simply validating their existing bet.

Additionally, maybe your story just doesn’t resonate with a fund manager for irrational reasons – a personality clash, investor baggage, or a bad first impression. Your meeting notes should include this information – and you should act upon it.

Do not shy away from periodically updating your target list. When you have reached an impasse or dead-end with a fund, you should feel free to remove it and replace them with a logical new prospect.