Tagged with BIO

Switzerland As former parent company Novartis centres its efforts on its “pure-play” innovative medicines business, Sandoz is increasingly betting on biosimilars. Having already launched a version of AbbVie’s blockbuster arthritis treatment Humira, the newly spun-off company has been gearing up for its independence by preparing additional biosimilar launches, signing big partnership…

Global The speed with which Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines were brought forward may have made the mRNA technology behind them appear novel. In fact, the pioneers whose discoveries enabled the creation of these vaccines, recent Nobel prize winners Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman, had been working on the mRNA and…

France France’s life sciences industry is falling behind its European neighbours, its growth deeply hampered, the French life sciences think tank G5 Santé claims, by abusive paybacks. While the government has demonstrated its willingness to take steps towards levelling its pricing barometers and in so doing tackle medicine shortages and build…

Taiwan As a part of the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP), the Medicines Patent Pool has signed a worldwide license with Medigen Vaccine Biologics (MVC) for its COVID-19 vaccine, representing a debut on two fronts. Not only is this the first time a COVID-19 vaccine developed by…

China A decade on from its launch, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) initiative has made some significant wins but remains some way from fulfilling the vision of a fully integrated internationally competitive bay area to rival that of its US west coast namesake.   Staggering Fundamentals Home to 87…

Global Claudia Martínez, generic & biosimilar medicines programme manager at the Access to Medicine Foundation, draws from a recent AMF report to outline what more generics companies can be doing to ensure greater access to their essential products. Martinez argues that for people living in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs), generic and…

Hong Kong 2018 marked a significant milestone in Hong Kong’s journey towards creating a vibrant biotech market for investors which allows Asian innovation to receive the funding it needs to progress. It was in that year that the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX) launched the bold and visionary move of allowing clinical-stage…

Morocco The COVID-19 pandemic exposed Africa’s dependence on overseas production as vaccines were quickly rolled out in other parts of the world while  African countries remained at the bottom of the list. The need to build capacity on the continent has been widely recognized, but few Western actors have yet made…

USA Having become one of the 20 youngest US billionaires as founder and CEO of disruptive biotech firm Roivant Sciences, Vivek Ramaswamy has now set his sights on becoming his country’s president. A long-term critic of how ESG criteria are used in corporate decision-making, Ramaswamy has since gone even further to…

Morocco MARBIO, a new vaccine manufacturing joint venture in Morocco, is the result of a partnership between the BAB banking consortium (Bank of Africa, Banque Centrale Populaire, and Attijariwafa Bank), Swedish CDMO Recipharm and the Mohammed VI Fund. Recipharm CEO Marc Funk and MARBIO General Manager Younès Hillali outline the scale…

USA Biotech and life sciences companies have a habit of clustering together, creating shared ecosystems to drive innovation. For going on 12 years Johnson & Johnson Innovation (JLABS), has been supporting this strength in numbers philosophy, finding, funding and incubating promising startups under a scheme of open innovation in its shared…

Belgium Encircled by heavyweight life sciences powerhouses of the likes of Germany, France and Switzerland, plucky Belgium nonetheless continues to astonish and project considerable influence when it comes to its abilities to develop, manufacture and sell medicines.   Despite representing only a mid-size marketplace from an in-country commercial perspective, the comparatively…