Takeda and Millennium's recent out-sized tie-up reflects the different but real industry pressures from which both companies are suffering.Facing near-term patent exiprations of several key drugs, Takeda desperately needed to bulk up its R&D pipeline. Millennium, for its own part, was heavily dependent on the label expansion of its lead product, Velcade, as it struggled to maintain sustainable earnings growth and advance its early stage compounds through the clinic.

Just three years after its founding, Chinese cell therapy developer IASO Bio already has two assets in clinical development and the Nanjing firm has recently attracted $60m in financing. In an exclusive interview, its R&D head told Scrip that speed and partnerships are propelling Chinese developers on a trajectory to quickly catch up with the west in the emerging cell-therapy arena.

Updated guidance from England’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence says two neurostimulation systems for treatment-resistant depression and epilepsy should only be used under special conditions. See what LivaNova’s VP of difficult-to-treat depression, Jonathan Walker, said about it here.