Tagged with S

Europe A new piece in the January 2023 edition of DIA’s Global Forum magazine lays out how a new coalition aims to transform the landscape for rare disease treatments in Europe and beyond.   The knowledge and infrastructure required to unlock rare disease “white spots,” diseases where there is currently no…

Japan Toshi Tominaga of Keio University Hospital, writing in the January 2023 edition of the DIA Global Forum magazine, outlines some recent updates to Japanese drug registration legislation, including how domestically generated academic clinical data can be utilised.   Japan’s current regulatory framework for investigator-initiated trials (IITs) of drug candidates seems…

APAC The latest pharma and healthcare news from APAC, including Celltrion’s plans to sell its Takeda portfolio to CBC; reforms to the South Korean national insurance system that may lead to shorter reimbursement timelines; Novartis’ early-stage HDAC6 Inhibitor deal with Chong Kun Dang Pharmaceutical; Astellas Pharma’s gastric cancer FDA fail; Daiichi…

India Managing director & CEO of Ferring India, Sudheendra Kulkarni, whose responsibilities have grown to cover the entire 10-country South Asia & ASEAN cluster, speaks about Ferring’s Indian footprint, which includes local API production and product development, and the 18-20 percent growth the affiliate saw in 2023. He discusses the relevance…

Portugal Dr Maria Mota, executive director at Portugal’s Institute of Molecular Medicine (iMM), shares how the non-profit institute generated its own circular economy during the COVID-19 pandemic and saved the Portuguese government some EUR 15 million thanks to its in-house developed PCR tests. She describes the expanson of the iMM’s focus…

Portugal The top 10 pharma companies in Portugal ranked by sales value in both the hospital and pharmacy markets. These charts are from IQVIA and are based on a moving annual total up to October 2023. Household Big Pharma names like Janssen (recently rebranded as Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicines), Roche,…

Portugal President of the Portuguese Association Against Leukaemia (APCL), Dr Manuel Abecasis is known as the father of bone marrow transplants in Portugal. He outlines the APCL’s activities, including the organisation’s role in raising awareness and increasing the number of donars in the Portuguese Bone Marrow Donor Registry, which went from…

United Kingdom The recent FDA decision to investigate the serious risk of patients developing new cancers after treatment with CAR-T therapies may have created some bad press around cell and gene therapies, but AstraZeneca has continued to consolidate its ambitions in the area with the acquisition of China-based cell therapy biotech, Gracell…

Denmark After transitioning from a fledgling biotech to a mature commercial-stage company on the back of its first approval, Zealand Pharma was hit with the challenges of commercialisation and the disappointing sales of its severe hypoglycemia treatment, Zegalogue. As a result, in 2022, the Danish firm did an about face, sacked…

China The latest pharma industry and healthcare news coming out of China including AstraZeneca’s acquisition of Gracell Biotechnologies; the alarming drop in enrolment in China’s state health insurance system; Huadong Medicine/Impact Therapeutics cancer drug deal; new Changchun GeneScience Pharmaceutical R&D centre in Shanghai, and MGI Tech’s bet on Australia.   AstraZeneca,…

USA Drawing on her experience as rare disease patient advocacy group SYNGAP1 Foundation’s founder and former president, Monica Weldon argues for the need to standardize genomic testing practices, warns against the possible ethical implications of individualized medicine, and makes a cause for a more holistic approach within rare disease communities.  …

India KV Subramaniam, president of Reliance Life Sciences, a research-driven medical biotech with a fully integrated value chain that covers everything from research to manufacturing, comments on the firm’s unique positioning and its efforts to diversify its portfolio. Moving beyond plasma proteins and biosimilars, Reliance looks to expand into vaccines and…