Months of pandemic-induced disruption to health care systems and freedom of movement undoubtedly carries a cost. For the biopharmaceutical industry, this can be mitigated by its essential role in providing therapeutic interventions and leading the fightback via prophylactic vaccines. This softens the blow somewhat, certainly compared to other industries that are fully exposed to COVID-19 headwinds.

“Pipeline-in-a-pill” has increasingly entered the biopharma executive’s vernacular, denoting an attractive asset that has considerable sales potential owing to the number of discrete patient populations it can target. While the phrase or concept may be in vogue, in reality it is one of the many guises or iterations of lifecycle management.

Focusing too much on the US provides a blinkered view of the industry and prevents access to the myriad opportunities on offer globally.