South Korea The latest healthcare and pharma news from South Korea, including SK Bioscience’s COVID-19 vaccine, Daewoong’s partnership with AstraZeneca Korea and UCI Therapeutics, Vivozon production halt and GC’s acquistion of US-based CDMO, BioCentriq. SK Bioscience’s COVID-19 vaccine to be tested against Omicron (Korea Biomedical Review) SK Bioscience’s has submitted a biologics…

Global With the rise of more transmissible variants and the reduced efficacy of outpatient monoclonal antibody therapies, the market for oral antivirals is expected to climb to new heights this year. Pfizer to take the lead, followed by Merck, and possibly, Shionogi. According to Airfinity’s recent COVID-19 treatment revenue forecast, the…

MEA The Middle East and Africa, combined, represent the world’s fifth largest regional pharma market. According to IQVIA’s recent figures, most of the largest markets grew, although slowly due to COVID lockdowns, with Saudi Arabia in the top position. Multinational companies continue to “dominate” the region with Gilead Sciences experiencing huge…

Spain Weeks after a mosquito forced the recall of 765,000 doses of Moderna’s vaccine manufactured in Spain, the country’s top medicines regulator called for new inspection procedures, praised the loyalty of the Spanish pharma industry and asked if the industry is going “too lean?” Speaking at a conference in Madrid on…

Global While the pharma industry provides the vital medicines needed to treat diseases and keep populations healthy, it is also responsible for carbon emissions of an intensity almost 55 percent higher than those of the automotive industry.* Lesser known than the link between the production of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) and…

Spain With global ambitions, Atrys Health, a publicly traded Spanish health-tech company, is betting on telediagnosis and last-generation radiotherapy to lead the precision medicine race, not missing the Big Data opportunities along the way. Its executive president, Dr. Santiago de Torres, explains why nothing is “too fast” when aiming for a…

USA When the FDA gave Novartis the historic green light for Kymriah – the first gene therapy approved in the United States – in 2017, the agency declared that it was “ushering in a new approach” to the treatment of cancer and other serious and life-threatening diseases. Today, more than 20…

Global At the recent Global Biopharma press briefing on COVID-19, held by the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA), industry leaders took on the issue of vaccine inequity, challenging the view that intellectual property waivers could be the answer. 13.7 billion doses of vaccines have been delivered and 11…

China Writing in the April edition of DIA’s Global Forum magazine, the DIA China Leadership and Career Community look at the Chinese pharmaceutical innovation ecosystem’s R&D talent gap and the China Pharmaceutical R&D Talent Innovation Research Project that was launched to address it.   Over the past five years, China’s pharmaceutical innovation industry…

Australia Writing in April edition of DIA’s Global Forum magazine, the University of New South Wales’s Richard Day looks at Australia’s National Medicines Policy (NMP) and how it is being reshaped by community and stakeholder feedback.   Australia’s National Medicines Policy (NMP), gazetted in 2000, is being revised and the draft policy was…

Europe When the COVID-19 pandemic struck in early 2020, Europe’s reliance on active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) and generic medicine suppliers outside of the continent was laid bare. In the face of crisis, countries like India and China understandably looked first to safeguard their own populations which, combined with supply chain strains…

Global Driven by increased demand from Big Pharma, mid-caps, and biotechs for outsourcing services, the USD 70 billion global contract research organisation (CRO) market is predicted to grow at a CAGR of between 11 and 12 percent over the next five to seven years, with differing estimates placing its total size…