Nasdaq Biotechnology Index (NBI): 247 Companies, Methodology, Pipeline Research and Data

Direct answer

The Nasdaq Biotechnology Index (NBI) is a modified market-capitalization-weighted benchmark of Nasdaq-listed companies classified by the Industry Classification Benchmark as Biotechnology or Pharmaceuticals and meeting Nasdaq's additional size, liquidity and seasoning requirements.

Nasdaq reports 247 components as of September 4, 2026. The index began on November 1, 1993 with a base value of 200.

NBI is considerably broader than a basket of profitable drug manufacturers. It includes large commercial biopharma companies, specialty pharmaceutical businesses, clinical-stage biotechnology companies, gene and cell therapy developers, RNA medicine companies, diagnostics and sequencing businesses, life-science tools, contract research/service companies and other businesses meeting the index rules.

Why NBI needs a different research architecture

Traditional company research often begins with revenue, earnings and valuation multiples.

That works poorly for a large portion of NBI.

A clinical-stage company may have:

• no product revenue;
• years of R&D spending;
• one major clinical asset;
• a binary regulatory outcome;
• repeated equity financing;
• substantial scientific value but little conventional earnings history.

A mature NBI company may instead have:

• multiple approved products;
• high free cash flow;
• a patent cliff;
• an acquisition strategy;
• a late-stage replacement pipeline.

Swoopr should therefore organize NBI research around company stage and biotechnology economic model, not one generic stock-page template.

Official eligibility

Nasdaq's current methodology requires a security's primary U.S. listing to be exclusively on the Nasdaq Global Select Market or Nasdaq Global Market.

There is no geographic headquarters requirement.

The issuer must be classified as either:

• Biotechnology; or
• Pharmaceuticals

under ICB.

Minimum size and liquidity

At annual reconstitution, an eligible security must have:

• at least $200 million in market capitalization; and
• average daily trading volume of at least 100,000 shares from the beginning of the year through the reconstitution reference date.

The security must also generally have traded for at least three full calendar months on an eligible exchange before the reference date, subject to the methodology's spin-off provision.

Annual reconstitution

NBI is reconstituted annually in December.

The methodology uses:

• market data through the end of October; and
• shares outstanding as of the end of November.

The annual reconstitution becomes effective after the close on the third Friday in December.

Unlike a fixed-count benchmark, NBI includes all securities that meet the eligibility criteria. That is why its number of constituents changes over time.

Quarterly rebalancing

NBI is rebalanced quarterly in:

• March;
• June;
• September; and
• December.

The quarterly rebalance reference date is the prior month-end and the rebalance becomes effective after the close on the third Friday of the rebalance month.

Weighting methodology

NBI is modified market-capitalization weighted.

The current methodology uses a two-stage weighting process.

Stage 1

Initial market-cap weights are adjusted so that no security exceeds 8%.

Stage 2

The five largest securities by market capitalization retain their Stage 1 weights.

All remaining securities are capped at 4%.

The final result is:

• no security above 8%; and
• only five securities allowed above 4%.

This reduces the concentration that a pure market-capitalization index could develop while still allowing the largest biotechnology companies to have greater influence.

Observed market weights can drift after a rebalance as prices change.

Deletions between annual reconstitutions

Nasdaq can remove a security between annual reconstitutions if it becomes ineligible.

The methodology states that deleted securities are not replaced outside the annual reconstitution.

That is important because the number of live NBI components can shrink between December reconstitutions.

Swoopr should store index membership as an event history:

• added;
• effective date;
• removed;
• removal reason if documented;
• source;
• membership snapshot.

Current 247-company working set

This package contains a reconciled 247-company September 4, 2026 working set.

The reconciliation began with Nasdaq's May 2026 constituent publication and compared it with the September current public component universe.

Eight names from the broader working universe no longer appear in the September 4 current component list:

• Apellis Pharmaceuticals (APLS)
• Apogee Therapeutics (APGE)
• Centessa Pharmaceuticals (CNTA)
• Crinetics Pharmaceuticals (CRNX)
• Esperion Therapeutics (ESPR)
• KalVista Pharmaceuticals (KALV)
• Nuvalent (NUVL)
• Terns Pharmaceuticals (TERN)

Current entity naming also needs to account for corporate identity changes. For example, the former I-Mab listing is represented in Swoopr's canonical entity layer as NovaBridge Biosciences (NBP).

The current component count matches Nasdaq's official count of 247.

Before publishing canonical membership badges or machine-readable memberships, Swoopr should complete a final reconciliation against Nasdaq Global Index Watch or another Nasdaq-authoritative component source.

NBI company research archetypes

The package assigns every current company a research lens. These lenses control the metrics and questions emphasized on the page.

Large commercial biopharma

Research:

• product franchise durability;
• pricing/volume;
• patent/exclusivity cliffs;
• pipeline replacement;
• free cash flow;
• capital allocation.

Commercial specialty pharmaceutical companies

Research:

• prescriptions;
• new patient starts;
• gross-to-net;
• payer access;
• commercial efficiency;
• lifecycle management.

Clinical-stage biotechnology

Research:

• lead asset;
• trial design;
• clinical evidence;
• next catalyst;
• cash runway;
• dilution.

Oncology

Research:

• response quality;
• durability;
• biomarker selection;
• safety;
• treatment line;
• competitive standard of care.

Gene and cell therapy

Research:

• delivery;
• durability;
• long-term safety;
• manufacturing;
• patient identification;
• CMC readiness.

RNA and nucleic-acid therapeutics

Research:

• target validation;
• delivery;
• dose response;
• tissue exposure;
• repeatability across programs.

Immunology

Research:

• efficacy;
• chronic-use safety;
• dosing convenience;
• payer economics;
• incumbent therapies.

Neuroscience

Research:

• endpoint quality;
• placebo response;
• functional benefit;
• biomarker strategy;
• trial reproducibility.

Rare disease

Research:

• patient identification;
• natural history;
• biomarker validity;
• pricing/access;
• small-population launch execution.

Metabolic disease

Research:

• efficacy;
• tolerability;
• adherence;
• differentiation;
• manufacturing scale;
• competition.

Diagnostics, genomics and life-science tools

Research:

• installed base;
• test/sample volume;
• consumables;
• reimbursement;
• research funding;
• workflow retention.

This archetype system is more useful than treating all 247 constituents as interchangeable biotechnology stocks.

The Swoopr biotech evidence hierarchy

Swoopr should rank evidence by reliability.

Tier 1 , regulatory/primary clinical evidence

• FDA labels and review documents;
• SEC filings;
• ClinicalTrials.gov;
• peer-reviewed primary trial publications;
• regulator decisions.

Tier 2 , company primary disclosures

• earnings releases;
• 10-Q/10-K/20-F/6-K;
• investor presentations;
• medical-conference presentations;
• company pipeline pages.

Tier 3 , external interpretation

• analyst research;
• scientific reviews;
• news;
• expert commentary.

Tier 3 material can add context but should not replace the underlying trial or regulatory source.

Clinical-trial data pages

NBI company pages should support trial-level structured data.

Every trial record should capture:

• ClinicalTrials.gov/NCT identifier;
• sponsor;
• asset;
• indication;
• phase;
• status;
• planned enrollment;
• actual enrollment where available;
• treatment arms;
• comparator;
• primary endpoint;
• secondary endpoints;
• estimated completion;
• latest company guidance;
• latest result;
• source date.

Do not merge separate trials into one undifferentiated "pipeline stage."

Regulatory data pages

Build a regulatory-event registry for:

• IND;
• Fast Track;
• Breakthrough Therapy;
• Orphan Drug;
• RMAT;
• accelerated approval;
• NDA/BLA;
• filing acceptance;
• PDUFA/action dates;
• advisory committees;
• CRLs;
• approvals;
• label expansions;
• post-marketing commitments.

A company-estimated filing window and an FDA-assigned PDUFA date must be represented as different event types.

Cash runway data

Cash runway should be a first-class NBI research data type.

For each company show:

• cash and marketable securities;
• debt;
• operating cash flow;
• R&D;
• SG&A;
• normalized quarterly burn;
• share count;
• recent financings;
• ATM/shelf availability where disclosed;
• next major catalyst.

The goal is to answer:

Can this company reach the next value-defining event without raising capital?

Dilution data

Build historical share-count and financing datasets covering:

• follow-on offerings;
• ATM usage;
• PIPEs;
• convertibles;
• warrants;
• employee equity;
• acquisition consideration.

Clinical success can still produce poor shareholder outcomes when per-share dilution absorbs most enterprise-value growth.

Commercial-product pages

For companies with marketed medicines, build product-level records for:

• indication;
• approval date;
• net product sales;
• demand/volume;
• gross-to-net;
• payer coverage;
• persistence;
• prescriber/center penetration;
• label expansions;
• competitive launches;
• patent/exclusivity.

Do not mix collaboration revenue, milestones and product sales into one unexplained revenue number.

Patent and exclusivity data

Create an exclusivity calendar for commercial products.

Track:

• composition-of-matter patents;
• method-of-use;
• formulation/device patents;
• regulatory exclusivity;
• orphan exclusivity;
• patent-term extensions;
• litigation;
• geographic differences.

This supports pages such as:

• NBI companies with major patent cliffs
• upcoming biotech exclusivity losses
• commercial franchises approaching generic/biosimilar competition

NBI catalyst calendar

Create a central index-level catalyst view.

Filters:

• company;
• therapeutic area;
• clinical phase;
• catalyst type;
• quarter;
• FDA event;
• readout;
• medical conference;
• financing risk.

Each row needs:

• source;
• last confirmed;
• company-guided versus externally fixed;
• confidence level.

NBI concentration and weighting

Where licensed, track:

• top 5 weight;
• top 10 weight;
• commercial vs clinical-stage weight;
• therapeutic-area concentration;
• modality concentration;
• diagnostics/tools weight;
• foreign ADR weight.

Do not reconstruct or redistribute Nasdaq weights without appropriate rights.

Data-rights boundary

Nasdaq Global Index Watch provides index component and weighting data through entitlement-controlled access.

Therefore:

• high-level index facts can be cited;
• methodology can be explained;
• individual company research can be published;
• company membership should be authoritatively verified;
• index weights are rights-gated;
• downloadable constituent/weight datasets require explicit permission.

Recommended NBI Data Pages

• /constituents/
• /constituents/history/
• /additions-removals/
• /methodology/
• /weights/ , rights-gated
• /commercial-vs-clinical/
• /therapeutic-areas/
• /modalities/
• /pipeline/
• /clinical-trials/
• /fda-calendar/
• /catalyst-calendar/
• /cash-runway/
• /dilution/
• /rd-spending/
• /annual-returns/
• /monthly-returns/
• /total-return/
• /drawdowns/
• /volatility/
• /valuation/
• /timeline/
• /etfs-and-products/

Swoopr proprietary biotechnology datasets

Subject to source/data rights, build:

Swoopr Biotech Catalyst Density

Number and importance of expected value-defining events across NBI.

Swoopr Cash Runway Risk

Months of estimated runway relative to the next major catalyst.

Swoopr Clinical Concentration Score

How much enterprise value is concentrated in one lead asset.

Swoopr Regulatory Risk Map

Upcoming FDA/EMA decisions and dependency on accelerated pathways.

Swoopr Pipeline Maturity Score

Weighted development-stage profile of a company or the index.

Swoopr Dilution Pressure Score

Cash runway, burn, share-count trend and financing capacity.

Swoopr Commercial Replacement Score

For mature biopharma, compare revenue at risk from exclusivity loss with risk-adjusted pipeline replacement.

Every derived metric must publish its formula and limitations.

FAQs

Primary sources

• Nasdaq NBI overview: https://indexes.nasdaq.com/Index/Overview/NBI
• Nasdaq NBI methodology: https://indexes.nasdaq.com/docs/methodology_NBI.pdf
• Nasdaq Global Index Watch: https://indexes.nasdaq.com/
• Current public component cross-check: https://www.investing.com/indices/nasdaq-biotechnology-components