Global Dr Vivienne Marshall, senior director of the Center for Advanced Therapies at the South Texas Blood & Tissue Center, part of BioBridge Global, outlines some of the major barriers to wider adoption of cell and gene therapies: complexity, variability, and the lack of robust standards. Dr Marshall also highlights the…

Mexico Mexican voters will be heading to the polls next June for what will be the largest election process in the country’s history with concurrent state and federal elections. The election will also mark another historic first as the two leading presidential hopefuls are women: Claudia Sheinbaum of the incumbent president Andres…

Global The speed with which Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines were brought forward may have made the mRNA technology behind them appear novel. In fact, the pioneers whose discoveries enabled the creation of these vaccines, recent Nobel prize winners Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman, had been working on the mRNA and…

LatAm A roundup of some of the latest news from Latin American pharma, including Acino’s acquisition of M8 Pharmaceuticals; AstraZeneca’s growth in Mexico; Neuraxpharm’s expansion into Brazil and Mexico, and Columbia’s decision to issue a compulsory license for GSK/ViiV’s HIV treatment.   Colombia set to issue a compulsory license for an…

USA The US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) passed last year by the Biden administration and hotly contested by the innovative pharma industry, has started to look more like a reality since the first ten drugs subject to price negotiations under the IRA were announced in August. The negotiated prices will not…

Global After a 12-year stint at Sanofi, Bill Sibold is leaving Big Pharma to join the Pennsylvania-based biotech Madrigal Pharmaceuticals as CEO. Sibold, no stranger to ground-breaking launches, having brought the blockbuster Dupixent to market, will be coming onboard just ahead of what looks to be a pivotal moment for Madrigal.…

Global The global contract research organization (CRO) market is estimated to be worth USD 76.6 billion in 2023 and is projected to reach USD 127.3 billion by 2028, growing at a CAGR of 10.7% from 2023 to 2028. Much of this growth is due to the need for novel clinical trial…

USA Having become one of the 20 youngest US billionaires as founder and CEO of disruptive biotech firm Roivant Sciences, Vivek Ramaswamy has now set his sights on becoming his country’s president. A long-term critic of how ESG criteria are used in corporate decision-making, Ramaswamy has since gone even further to…

Brazil The DIA Global Annual Meeting 2023 hosted DIA’s first regulatory Town Hall fully dedicated to one regulator from Latin America, as leadership from Brazil’s Health Regulatory Agency, ANVISA, shared updates on the country’s regulatory priorities, the agency’s strategic priorities, and local trends, as well as ongoing regulatory convergence and collaboration initiatives. This…

USA Illumina’s newly appointed CEO, Jacob Thaysen, will take the reins of the gene sequencing giant at the end of September. Falling heir to the difficulties that have plagued the company since its botched acquisition of cancer blood test maker Grail, Thaysen will have to confront the company’s legal tangles with…

USA Biotech and life sciences companies have a habit of clustering together, creating shared ecosystems to drive innovation. For going on 12 years Johnson & Johnson Innovation (JLABS), has been supporting this strength in numbers philosophy, finding, funding and incubating promising startups under a scheme of open innovation in its shared…

Global Amgen has forged a solid position as one of the world’s largest independent biotechnology companies. With a market capitalisation of some USD 130 billion and 27 approved medicines, the US-based firm has come a long way from its original biotech upstart status in 1980. Nonetheless, Amgen has faced obstacles in…