Russia The latest news from Russian pharma and healthcare including a big funding injection for primary care up to 2025, limits on pharma companies’ ability to patent other forms of already known chemical compounds in Russia, and the Sputnik COVID-19 vaccine’s geopolitical cachet.   Russia to allocate $7.4 bln for healthcare…

Norway Equality has long been a deeply held ideal in Norway, where the concept of allemannsretten – the legal right to roam – permeates all aspects of society. Notably, surplus wealth produced by Norway’s sizeable petroleum industry is deposited into the Government Pension Fund Global, today the world’s largest sovereign wealth…

Global Pharma industry insiders view vaccines as one of the most challenging products to manufacture, fundamentally due to the inherent biological variability of the pathogen itself, which is the starting block of any vaccine, as well as the resulting inherent variability of the biological raw materials and processes required in vaccine…

Switzerland Although Switzerland is ahead of many of its competitors in Europe on levels of healthcare innovation, one potential stumbling block is access to and use of data. The country’s decentralised healthcare system means that many data sets are siloed and heterogeneous within regions, creating issues in terms of conducting research…

Vaccines The story of how British doctor Edward Jenner serendipitously discovered a way to inoculate people against smallpox in 1976 by injecting them with cowpox pus is well-known. Over the past two centuries, vaccine development platforms have (thankfully) advanced leaps and bounds, delivering a wealth of options to tackle global health…

Europe With Rare Disease Day falling on 28 February, PharmaBoardroom dedicates this month to exploring the global rare disease landscape, highlighting key trends and developments as well as profiling the most innovative global players in this space. We start the party off with five of the most promising clinical-stage biotech companies…

Global Advances in cell and gene therapies (CGT) are credited with thoroughly transforming medicinal science and creating an inflection point in the ability to treat and potentially cure many intractable illnesses. To date, however, accessibility to many of these game changing technologies remains limited, often due to high upfront sticker-prices and…

Switzerland A trained physician with several years of practice under her belt, Katharina Gasser then moved into clinical research as an investigator before joining the pharma industry in 2005. Now head of Biogen’s Swiss affiliate and chair of the executive committee of industry association Interpharma, Gasser cites her diverse background as…

Switzerland Alvotech – the biosimilars arm of Icelandic-headquartered generics player Alvogen – is positioning itself for future growth via a very different strategy to that of the Big Pharma players with biosimilar portfolios. Chief Commercial Officer Anil Okay, who sits in Switzerland, explains the four company traits that he believes will…

Brazil The Brazilian pharma market outperformed the Latin American average in Q1 of 2020 with a growth of 8.2 percent in real terms (inflation adjusted), according to IQVIA. Its size reached USD 21.8 billion, with almost two thirds coming from retail. The overall LatAm pharma market grew 6 percent in average…

Global Bayer’s Michael Levy casts his eye over the implications of the advent of cell and gene therapies on pharmacovigilance and patient safety.  Levy examines why these potentially revolutionary new therapies will necessitate a rethinking and adaptation of currently existing pharmacovigilance processes and activities.   While traditional medicines have, without a…

China Eric Bouteiller examines the most recent update to China’s National Reimbursement Drug List, the positive impact that a de facto annual review has had on drug approval timelines, and why a more streamlined and data driven review process is positive news for the innovative pharmaceutical industry. However, Bouteiller cautions that…