The era of follow-on medicinal chemistry has largely been eliminated by more comprehensive patent protection. Nowadays, investors trade on the differences in safety and efficacy for similar molecules.

A drastic risk-off pullback in the public market can close an IPO window while private biotechs aspiring for either a public debut or an acquisition by big pharma may be stymied by their stale valuations.

Oncology drug sales plummeted during the pandemic leading to a backlog of untreated patients that lingered even after the impact of COVID-19 drugs. While Q2 reports suggest this cancer backlog is now being addressed, the contrasting fates of vaccines and treatments for SARS-CoV-2 are actually turning out to be opaquer than expected. 

When a loss-making rare disease biotech company’s product takes on Pfizer in the same indication but without the benefit of superior data, pharmaceutical marketing lessons will be learnt.

Pfizer recorded the largest quarterly sales in its history as its COVID-19 franchise easily outweighed the currency issues that are challenging other companies. But expectations for a quick end to the pandemic have wiped these gains from Pfizer’s stock price.

Roche’s stock price has underperformed in the last nine months in spite of a natural hedge on the strong US dollar that has troubled most other profitable pharma companies. Has Roche become a value stock?