In the first half of 2019, life science companies raised $469m through series A rounds in Europe – a solid start to the year compared to the $686m companies raised in 2018 overall. Silicon Valley Bank expects the European sector to be in “rude health” for the next two to three years at least, when it comes to accessing VC cash.

As health care transitions to digitally enabled wellness, medtechs will be missing a trick if they persist in holding onto the delivery, business methods and models that were the standard of the early 2000s. Heightened expectations of the new options for dealing with personal health mean that new opportunities are there for the taking – but industry shouldn’t let the tech companies have it all their own way, advised ZS principal Brian Chapman.

The complexity of producing viable drug candidates is increasing as an abundance of new science keeps extending the range of possible targets and fragmenting disease subtypes. Proximity to novel exploratory research is a driver of pipeline productivity – so can physical location within a communal geography of well-resourced intellectual firepower raise the odds for R&D success? In Vivo sits down with eight key leaders in academia, VC, commercial real estate and groundbreaking biotech to discuss how Los Angeles – the “out there” city of out-sized ambitions – is positioning itself for global leadership in the curative technologies of the future.

Patient-driven drug development meets the old saying of "where there's a will, there's a way" in China, potentially the world's largest market for rare disease treatments.

Scientists now understand that there are multiple, bi-directional links between gut and brain. They are using this knowledge to develop new treatments for some of the most challenging chronic conditions, including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and obesity. 

INFOGRAPHIC: In Vivo has listed some of the biggest scientific and development challenges still facing the innovative health care sector in 2019.

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

In case you missed it: catch up with snippets from interviews published by In Vivo this week. 

The European MedTech Forum’s CEO panel set out to address high-level global, long-range issues, but from the start it got log jammed in regulatory issues. Not in the script perhaps, but wholly understandable, as new EU regulations will have huge strategic importance for how companies do business – and in the case of start-ups, if they can continue to do business.

In case you missed it: catch up with snippets from interviews published by In Vivo this week.

Esin Izat, a pharmaceutical marketing research expert, talks to In Vivo about how smaller companies can better utilize pre-launch marketing research and how approaches are changing to reflect new customer profiles and advances in technology.

In a world where national economies are beset by conflicting spending priorities, health care is oftentimes too low on the agenda, health care observers say. One of these is Boston Scientific senior vice-president Eric Thépaut, who understands the dilemmas, but says that health care will soon force its way up the priority list. He has advice for future-ready medtech innovators.

Trialtrove’s annual review of clinical trials initiated by industry sponsors is a useful gauge of the diversity and innovative potential of biopharma’s investments in R&D. This year’s report reveals that, while there are patterns of consistency in many aspects of the trial landscape, changes are in the wind – particularly as companies outside the pharma top 20 now contribute more completed trials than any other type of sponsor.

Derived from Strategic Transactions, Informa’s premium source for tracking life sciences deal activity, the Dealmaking column is a survey of recent health care transactions listed by relevant industry segment – In Vitro Diagnostics, Medical Devices, and Pharmaceuticals – and then categorized by type – Acquisition, Alliance, or Financing. This month’s column covers deals announced July 2019.

Gilead signed two big oncology deals with Nurix and Carna. AbbVie bought Botox maker Allergan for $63 billion. FOPOs led biopharma financing, while debt represented the most dollars in device fundraising.