Europe Pierre Meulien, Executive Director- Innovative Health Initiative, presents the public-private joint undertaking that boasts a total budget of EUR 2.4 billion and aims to build on the work of the Innovative Medicines Initiative to boost collaboration between the European pharmaceutical and related industries and the European Commission.   The Innovative…

Global Merck has agreed to front USD 150 million for Orna Therapeutics’ new investigational class of engineered circular RNA (oRNA) therapies in a collaboration agreement that will also provide the biotech series B financing. This broad strategic collaboration brings together Merck’s significant expertise … with Orna’s compelling circular RNA technology to…

Global Sarah Pope Miksinski, executive director/CMS regulatory affairs, and Gregory Rullo, senior director regulatory affairs, at AstraZeneca discuss the need for common ground among regulators and industry when it comes to patient centricity and for strategic leadership to address differing regulatory control-strategy requirements. In today’s increasingly complex and intricate pharmaceutical landscape,…

USA While patient groups view the United States’ new Inflation Reduction Act as a positive move towards capping out-of-pocket drug costs for older Americans, the innovative pharma industry, after aggressively lobbying against it, still argues that the new legislation will hamper drug development. [The new law] is a significant step in…

China A selection of the latest stories from Chinese pharma, including Novartis’ bet that the country will become its second biggest market by 2024 through the introduction of 50 new drugs, a new report by McKinsey that evaluates China’s impact on the global biopharma industry, AstraZeneca’s respiratory plans, and Gilead’s USD…

Egypt Egypt’s largest pharmaceutical manufacturer by units, EIPICO, plans to diversify its production capacity by building the country’s first biological & biosimilar production plant. Not only that, the company is leading the change towards localization and local production of APIs. Founded in 1980, EIPICO is currently the number one company in…

Global While COVID-19 demonstrated the biopharma industry’s capacity for innovation and its ability to scale up manufacturing, it also exposed the challenges of ensuring equitable distribution of vaccines. In an effort to work towards solving these issues and being better prepared to respond to future pandemics, the industry has created the…

Europe Pharma and biotech companies have demonstrated their commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), particularly with respect to gender equality with more and more women in leadership positions. Insights from women pharma leaders in Europe.   I believe it is more important than ever to build a truly diverse and…

Global DIA 2022 convened with an opening plenary that explored the question What is the Future of Healthcare? from four connected perspectives—Inclusive, Global, Individual, Digital.   Barbara Lopez Kunz, Global Chief Executive, DIA “We’re here this week because we imagine a world where powerful health interventions and tools are rapidly discovered,…

South Africa Some of the top pharma news coming out of South Africa including Afrigen’s partnership with US National Institutes of Health (NIH), BioNTech’s efforts to bring an mRNA start-to-finish vaccine manufacturing network to Africa and Ascendis Health’s deal with Austell Pharmaceuticals for its pharma division.   Afrigen partners with US National Institutes…

Global After almost four years leading Sanofi’s second largest market, China, Pius S. Hornstein moves into a global role to focus on the company’s digital transformation. “In the last 8 years, I have been witnessing the incredible opportunities that digital could unlock …” he said in a LinkedIn post announcing the…

Global Pharma companies no longer view digital as a “nice to have” add on, but as an integral part of their business, yet there are still quite a few hurdles to overcome. Insights from pharma industry digital transformation leaders. Industry is on a dedicated and focused journey to leverage data and…