A steady flow of venture capital into the medical device industry continued in the first half of 2020 despite the novel coronavirus pandemic. While Biopharma companies secured more than $7.5bn in private financings between January and June. 

COVID-19 has introduced new challenges (and more attorneys) into the biopharma deal-making environment, but experts say the fundamentals for deal activity point toward a rebound. Companies that adapt quickly to changes – in communication, due diligence and deal structure – will make successful connections in a time of social distancing.

Disruptions in the supply/demand configuration of generic drugs have plagued US health care for years. Picket Pharmaceuticals, a new start-up founded by a biostatistician veteran of Africa’s war on HIV, is using the illuminating powers of big data to stabilize the generics supply chain and find untapped areas of value among thousands of products in a business that remains a mystery to physicians, payers and patients alike.

Experts discuss the future of brain health, changing the stereotypical view of an Alzheimer’s patient and how technology and science have evolved the treatment possibilities for dementia patients in 2020 – even if ‘clinical practice is taking a long time to catch up.’

A complete response letter from the FDA in June knocked Intercept’s stock price down to 2014 levels, but perhaps the regulator is sending wider messages about NASH.

ResMed’s respiratory device portfolio has put it front and center of the global medtech industry’s efforts to bring COVID-19 under control. UK and Ireland country manager Antoine Valterio tells In Vivo how the company rose to the challenge, and how providers are now seeing digital technologies in a new light.

An interactive look at recent executive-level company changes and promotions in the biopharma, medical device and diagnostics industries.

A selection of features you might have missed from the first six months of 2020, covering key topics from COVID-19 strategies in medtech to an analysis of pipeline focus areas across the pharma sector. Click on each section to get the full story behind the data. 

Johan Van Hoof, global head of vaccines at Janssen, talks to In Vivo about the company’s platform, how it is approaching COVID-19 research and the impact of today’s global pandemic on the future of vaccine R&D. 

Unique industry partnerships and new regulatory flexibility in Latin America may help to improve access to medicines, even as COVID-19 wreaks havoc in the region’s largest pharmaceutical market. Can biopharma’s bespoke solutions to market access barriers coalesce into a strategy capable of overcoming political, economic and COVID-19 related risks?   

Last month a drug for the prevention of uterine haemorrhage became the first product to be approved under a novel scheme designed to speed up access to medicines in low and middle-income countries, particularly those in sub-Saharan Africa. 

Spearheading discussions with NICE, bluebird bio’s UK general manager Nicola Redfern has been central to efforts to introduce fresh reimbursement models within the health technology assessment process and commercial framework. Success could change the way cell and gene therapies are assessed and affect the outlook for many patients living with rare diseases.

Genmab and AbbVie penned a broad oncology collaboration worth up to $3.9bn. Novo Nordisk entered into an agreement to acquire Corvidia Therapeutics for $725m up front in cash and up to $1.375bn in earn-outs.

Top of the agenda for the medtech industry globally is when the “new normal” will return. In the UK, the expectations are that post-COVID-19 health care activity will increase gradually, but it is possible that the National Health Service will not reach its pre-coronavirus capacities until late in 2021, “if at all.”

Device financing totaled $1.4bn during the first quarter of 2020. Merger and acquisition activity reached $714.5m, with only two transactions hitting the six-figure mark. Financings by diagnostics/research players totaled $985m and just six companies were acquired, four of which together were valued at $11.6bn, most coming from Thermo Fisher Scientific’s $11.5bn buy of fellow public life sciences company Qiagen NV.