Italy In July 2020, Italy became the first country in the world to mandate pharma companies to disclose data surrounding public subsidies received for the development of new drugs. The decree came almost a year after an Italy-led World Health Assembly (WHA) resolution on transparency of markets for health products, comes…

Norway Norway, known more for its expertise in oil and gas and marine biology than in health innovation, is home to increasing numbers of innovative medical technology start-ups. Here are five of the most exciting such companies, as selected by Kathrine Myhre, founder and CEO of Oslo-based innovation cluster Norway Health…

Europe In the wake of the COVID-19 crisis and the subsequent strain placed on medicine supply chains in Europe, Sandoz – the generics arm of global giant Novartis – has moved to strengthen its antibiotics manufacturing presence in Austria.   The planned combined investment of EUR 150 million by Sandoz and…

France A roundup of some of the latest from French pharma, including Sanofi’s bumper Prinicipia deal, how Unither’s new Chinese acquisition catapults it into the world’s top 5 CDMOs, Ipsen’s resilient performance in the first half of 2020 despite COVID-19 headwinds, and the French government’s push for more domestic pharma manufacturing.…

Norway The top 10 pharma companies in Norway ranked by 2019 turnover according to IQVIA data. The Norwegian market is dominated by multinationals, with Finnish Orion Pharma the sole Nordic representative in the top 10 list. See below for the full rankings.   Novartis Swiss firm Novartis had a turnover of…

UK US Merck (MSD globally) is following through on a 2017 commitment to invest in a new early research hub in central London, with plans to open the ‘London Discovery Research Centre’ by 2025.   Having announced that the hub would be built in 2017, one year after the UK’s vote…

Sanofi Sanofi has agreed a deal to buy out its partner, US biotech company Principia Biopharma for USD 3.7 billion in cash, giving the French giant full ownership of Principia’s pipeline of BTK inhibitors for autoimmune disorders.   The deal, whereby Sanofi is set to pay USD 100 a share to…

Merck PharmaBoardroom recently sat down with Merck’s EVP and Head of Global Healthcare Operations, Teresa Rodó to unpack her important role within the global group and how Merck has pivoted to rise to the supply chain challenges posed by the COVID-19 crisis.   Although many companies now claim to have this…

Long Read Squirreled away in the lowlands of North West Europe and somewhat dwarfed by the mighty neighbouring pharmaceutical powerhouses of Germany and France, one could easily be forgiven for overlooking Belgium’s zesty life science ecosystem. At first glance, the numbers certainly appear more steady than thrilling: a EUR 5.4 billion domestic…

Pharma Faces Belgium is a vitally important country for Johnson & Johnson’s pharmaceutical arm, Janssen, globally. In addition to their R&D centre and a pharma production plant in Beerse, Janssen also has a chemical production plant in Geel, a Clinical Pharmacology Unit in Merksem, and a Phase I research institute in Antwerp…

Belgium Belgian doctor, researcher and professor, Stéphane De Wit has been with the St Pierre University Hospital in Brussels since 1983. Initially planning to specialize in intensive care, his first internship took him by chance to the infectious diseases department where he encountered his first patients with AIDS, met his mentor,…

Belgium Belgium’s healthcare system was ranked fourth in Europe in 2019, outperforming its peers across a number of metrics including a relatively high number of hospital beds per capita (six per thousand citizens, compared to the EU average of five per thousand citizens) and the second-highest number of doctor consultations per…