Japan In the five years since the Japanese drugmaker began a strategic shift and created an ambitious plan to maintain growth, CEO Kenji Yasukawa helped Astellas move away from its previous business model and bounce back from failing revenues. With the appointment of former chief strategy officer Naoki Okamura as its…

China A roundup of some of the biggest pharma and biotech news from China including the approval of two domestically developed COVID treatments; Daewoong’s idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis licensing deal, Roche’s gastric cancer partnership with CARsgen; Sino Biopharm’s continued attempt to buyout of F-star Therapeutics and Takeda’s deal with Hutchmed for a…

Africa As part of a special focus on drug development and clinical research in Africa in February 2023’s DIA Global Forum magazine, Lisa Ursella Collins of Innomas Clinical Research, Leslie Sam from Leslie Sam and Associates, Jayesh Pandit, a Patient Safety Advocate from Kenya, Helen Ndagije of the Uganda National Drug…

Japan Writing in the February 2023 edition of DIA’s Global Forum magazine, Yumi Wakabayashi of Janssen, Takahiro Horimatsu from the Institute for Advancement of Clinical and Translational Science at Kyoto University, Hiroshi Asai of Astellas, Yasuhiro Himeno from the Government of Japan’s Cabinet Office, and Hiroyuki Taruno of the Cancer Institute…

Chile Korean biotech SK Bioscience, known for bringing forward the first South Korean-developed COVID-19 vaccine, is pursuing its beyond-COVID growth strategy with a new green light for its SKYCellflu vaccine. The recent approval by Chile’s Instituto de Salud Publica follows nine others and is the first in the Latin America region.…

South Africa Roughly half of Africa’s 1.1 billion people lack regular access to even the most essential medicines and most of Sub-Saharan Africa depends on imports which make up as much as 70 to 90 percent of the medicines consumed there. As the COVID-19 pandemic further demonstrated this dependence and the vulnerability…

CEE Some of the most important stories emanating from the Central and Eastern European (CEE) region’s pharma industry, including Polpharma’s bid for Zentiva, Richter’s acquisition of OC Distributors and MDD approval in the US, Hungary’s windfall tax on pharma, Presage’s collaboration with Pure Biologics and Lithuania’s biotech ambitions.   Polpharma working…

Egypt Barely four and a half years ago, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi secured overwhelming re-election vowing to “place public health front and centre” of a radical reform and stabilization agenda. What has occurred subsequently has undoubtedly been momentous. Firstly, his administration unveiled ambitious plans to provide universal, cradle to grave,…

Greece DEMO, founded in 1965, is a mainstay of Greek pharma and one of its largest companies, accounting for 25 percent of the total investment across the entire Greek pharmaceutical sector. Throughout its long history DEMO has shifted its focus, moved towards exports and weathered Greece’s financial crisis. Today, the family-owned…

Global In spite of the spectacular healthcare advances the world has seen in recent decades and increasing evidence that gender equality is not only an ethical necessity, but a decisive component of economic and social development, disparities in women’s health persist. At the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, diverse…

UK A roundup of the latest UK healthcare, pharma and biotech news including AbbVie and Lilly’s departure from the country’s voluntary medicines pricing agreement, Moderna’s expanded footprint, UK biotech’s 2022 funding downturn and Gilead’s Yescarta approval from NICE.   Northern Ireland Medicines supply still ‘problematic and inefficient’ (BBC News) According to…

LatAm Latin America is a rapidly growing market for the global medtech industry, offering significant opportunities. With a population of over 650 million people, the region boasts a large and growing middle class that are showing increasing demand for high-quality healthcare services and medical technologies. In recent years, the Latin American…