USA Ramona Sequeira, recently appointed chair of the PhRMA board of directors and president of Takeda’s US Business Unit and Global Portfolio Commercialization, gives her take on how the biopharma industry can do more to address the systemic inequities in US healthcare, including community-focused grant programs, clinical trial diversity initiatives, and…

LatAm Writing in the March edition of DIA’s Global Forum magazine, the University of Southern California’s Viktoria Magyar looks at how Latin American regulatory bodies adapted to the COVID-19 pandemic and what some of its longer-term impacts on regulatory activities in the region might be.   Driven by increasing workloads, limited…

India Writing in the March 2022 edition of DIA’s Global Forum magazine, Ananya Chakraborty from the Vydehi Institute of Medical Sciences & Research Centre outlines the key factors behind India’s successful COVID-19 vaccination program.   January 16, 2022, was a proud day for India. The country achieved the milestone of completing…

China Writing in the March 2022 edition of DIA’s Global Forum magazine, Jessie Zhu of Deltamed Co. Ltd./Pharmaron Clinical and Monica Juping Xu of Taimei Medical Technology outline the progress of pharmacovigilance standards in China, and make the call for greater levels of digitalisation and training.   Since China joined ICH…

MEA On International Women’s Day 2022, Inna Nadelwais, executive director at Middle East and Africa medtech trade association Mecomed, examines the road still to travel towards true gender parity in the MEA medtech workforce, and why diversity, inclusion, and equality in the workplace benefits all parties.   The MEA region continues…

Global As the focus of the global COVID-19 pandemic response shifts downstream from the development and production of vaccines to vaccination campaigns themselves, IFPMA Director-General Thomas Cueni lays out the biopharmaceutical industry’s three new overarching priorities: supporting country readiness, contributing to equitable distribution, and driving innovation.   From the early days…

USA In the wake of Access! 2022, the Association for Accessible Medicines (AAM)’s first in-person annual summit in two years, AAM President and CEO Dan Leonard gives his five takeaways from what he describes as a “rich, complex, and provocative” conference.   The generic and biosimilar supply chains continue to demonstrate…

Global Drawing on the findings of EY’s recently published life sciences M&A firepower report, EY Global Life Sciences Deals Leader Subin Baral makes the case for big biopharmas to seek out alliances and partnerships as an alternative to M&A and lists ten considerations that these firms should bear in mind if…

Global Merck Group’s Vice President Global Market Access & Pricing Strategic Planning Marco Rauland casts his eye over blockchain-based smart contracts and their applications for pharma across supply chain enhancement, improving clinical trials, and outcome-based contracting.   Smart contracts are self-executing digital contracts based on blockchain technology that provides decentralized data…

Global Writing in the February edition of DIA’s Global Forum magazine, Candice Del Rio of Curavit Clinical Research examines the applicability of decentralised clinical trials in oncology research, and their positive impact on both decreasing patient dropout rates and increasing patient engagement. Oncology represents the largest research area globally, with 6.5 percent…

MEA In the February edition of DIA’s Global Forum magazine Sybil Nana Ama Ossei-Agyeman-Yeboah of the West African Health Organization, Jane H. Mashingia from the East African Community Medicines Regulatory Harmonization Programme, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s David Mukanga examine the state of joint assessment procedures in the East…

Global Taking the massive Microsoft acquisition of videogame company Activision Blizzard as his jumping-off point, Shawview Consulting’s Brendan Shaw lays out six key life science industry trends to watch in the coming year and wonders whether 2022 will be pharma’s ‘Call of Duty’ moment.   A few weeks ago, 2022 started…