Europe In the wake of the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), sustainability is once more a hot-button issue across all industries, including pharma. Here, Marco Rauland, vice president global market access & pricing strategic planning at Merck Group, casts his eye across Europe to assess how sustainability criteria are…

UK The latest news from UK pharma, including AstraZeneca’s decision to create a dedicated business unit for its COVID-19 vaccines, GSK’s raised profits forecast, and CDMO Almac’s move to create over 1,000 new jobs at its facilities in Northern Ireland over the next three years.   AstraZeneca to create dedicated Covid…

Saudi Arabia As the Saudi pharma market – worth approximately USD 8.2 billion – continues to grow, so does the need for pharma companies to efficiently distribute their medicines inside the Kingdom. Here, we present four of the main trends at play in the Saudi distribution landscape, from market consolidation to centralised…

Europe Cyril Titeux, senior VP mid-sized markets EMEA & strategic leader at Janssen, argues that the current focus of many health systems on efficiency, streamlining, and reducing spending is leaving them ill-prepared to absorb the shock of future crises. Titeux instead posits the need for the building up of resilience and…

China Portuguese national Isabel Afonso, a Novartis and Sandoz veteran of almost 20 years, has taken on a new role as general manager of Novartis’ highly strategic oncology franchise in China as of November 2021.   Since first joining the company back in 2002, Afonso held a variety of roles IT…

Global After 20 years, Novartis will no longer own one third of Roche’s shares after the two Swiss pharma giants agreed to a transaction worth USD 20.7 billion. While Roche touted the deal as the regaining of “full strategic flexibility”, Novartis argued that it was the right time to “monetize” its…

China The latest news from Chinese pharma, including a new report showing that despite the increasing number of Priority Review and Breakthrough Therapy designations awarded within China, only two Accelerated Approval designations have been awarded since 2015. Elsewhere, Pfizer is utilising drone technology to promote health education in remote areas and…

Global With advances in technology, an increasing number of stable peptide-based therapeutics are being brought to market today across a wide range of therapeutic areas. Through expert insight, we explain why the peptide field is generating so much excitement, outline some of the most significant recent breakthroughs and big-ticket investments, and…

Turkey While supporters of Turkey’s localization policy for pharmaceuticals implemented in 2016 applaud the changes it has brought, its opponents are awaiting a much-anticipated report by the World Trade Organization that could put an end to the policy and have global repercussions.   Five years after the launch of Turkey’s localization…

MENA The Middle East and Africa (MEA) region is vast and is predominantly composed of emerging countries with varying levels of income and healthcare infrastructure. Here, three regional managers for pharma multinationals explain what MEA means to their global groups and their key areas of focus today.   Biogen: Awareness is…

Global After a challenging 2020, and with more hurdles in sight, Bayer has been on an investment spree with a USD 2 billion acquisition of a San Diego-based biotech and manufacturing sites in Latin America and Norway.   Bayer had a challenging year in 2020. While the German giant argued in…

Asia-Pacific Asia has experienced a biotech boom in the past five years. In 2020, almost 50 percent of the region’s clinical trials were led by biotechs and by 2025, biotech-led clinical trials will far exceed those led by Big Pharma, according to IQVIA. However, the region’s biotechs face a myriad of…