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.

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.

In today’s globalized market for medicines, national rules on pricing and access are abundantly shared and more transparent than opaque. In Vivo speaks to the UK branded industry’s negotiator for the latest five-year joint pricing pact with the government, Richard Torbett, who outlines, among other topics, five widely applicable precedents from the talks that can work in “getting to yes” – despite the fractious budgetary climate for health care evident in all major country markets. 

Ten years after our first encounter with MIT’s Robert Langer, In Vivo sits down with the polymath professor – arguably the most inventive and prolific life scientist of his generation – to identify key challenges in medicine. 

Information is the lifeblood that sustains drug development – but the ability to disperse, differentiate and make sense of it is what delivers success in the marketplace. Bausch Health Companies has decided to make global alignment through the strategic application of IT the centerpiece of its effort to shed the legacy of its acquisitive predecessor Valeant Pharmaceuticals. 

In a recent interview, ProQR’s founder Daniel de Boer cited the enormous impact that fellow Dutch businessman Henri Termer played in getting his fledging biotech start-up off the ground – especially given the circumstances.  Some 10 years ago, the then twenty-something budding biotech entrepreneur crossed the Atlantic on a chance that Termeer would answer what amounted to an unscheduled desk-knock at the rare disease pioneer’s office at Genzyme HQ in Cambridge, MA.  He did – and the rest is history.