USA In the face of rising costs in American healthcare, Carla Smith outlines five ways in which the US can improve the financial sustainability of its healthcare system.   Let’s take advantage of systems-level expertise and change our reality for the better In the United States, 18 percent of the gross…

Taiwan Taiwan boasts a booming life sciences sector and is striving to innovate through collaboration. Here we present five of the key executives and stakeholders who are aiming to drive the island’s life sciences sector forward.   Johnsee Lee – Chairman, Taiwan Bio Industry Organization Dr Johnsee Lee holds a number…

Germany Bayer’s latest move to buy out BlueRock Therapeutics comes with a price tag of USD 600 million in total as the company increasingly looks toward cell and gene therapies to bolster its development pipeline and create transformative biotechnological solutions.   German pharmaceutical company Bayer AG is setting its sights on…

Cell & Gene Therapy Medicare, a national health insurance program in the United States covering Americans aged 65 and older as well as younger people with disabilities, has recently announced it will be increasing reimbursement rates and expanding coverage for cell and gene therapy treatments, good news for cancer patients and pharma companies Gilead…

Opinion Much has been made of how Big Pharma needs to learn from Big Tech in order to fully adapt to the digital age. Here, pharma industry veteran Richard Bergström argues that, in fact, the technology industry has much to learn from the pharmaceutical industry and that biopharma is well-placed to…

USA PhRMA’s Anne McDonald Pritchett PhD highlights the remarkable development of cell and gene therapies in recent years and the three ways in which the US healthcare system can better accommodate them: creating manufacturing systems that take treatment timelines into account, a health system that values treatments based on patient outcomes,…

Opinion Pierre Meulien of the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) highlights why cell and gene therapies seem finally braced for mainstream adoption as well as the significant barriers that still need to be overcome for large patient numbers to access these innovative and often costly treatments.   Today, [ATMPs] finally seem to…

USA In a bid to make tangible progress on the issue of lowering prescription drug pricing before the 2020 presidential election, the Trump administration is planning to import cheaper medicines from Canada and elsewhere. However, as the Eurasia Group’s Aditya Bhattacharji and Sandra Yamin Namoos outline, the proposed plan’s impact on…

Europe Janssen’s EMEA market access head Martin Price outlines the regulatory changes that need to be made for patients across Europe to better access cutting-edge cancer medicines.   Recent advances in medical science are the driving force behind the research and successful development of innovative cancer treatments in Europe. By targeting…

People Multinational pharma companies have been setting up shop in China ever since Novartis launched its Chinese affiliate in 1987, with other pharma giants following in its footsteps soon after, eager to penetrate the Chinese market. Affiliates in China are typically large organizations with several thousand employees. Leadership and communication skills…

Thailand Thailand has experienced a steady decline in infectious disease rates in the last generation thanks to the country’s commitment to life sciences research. The executive vice president of the National Science and Technology Development Agency elaborates on Thailand’s research on infectious diseases and how collaboration fuels further progress.    We…

Opinion Brendan Shaw, Principal of Shawview Consulting and Adjunct Senior Lecturer at the University of New South Wales, shares highlights from the 2019 World Health Organization’s List of Essential Medicines.   The most recent edition of the World Health Organization’s Model List of Essential Medicines was released on 9 July and…