“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.

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.

In 2020, investors poured millions of dollars into biotech companies searching for new therapeutics that interact with cellular processes involving the destruction and recycling of cellular proteins. These protein degradation-targeted therapies, and molecular glues, have been attracting the attention of big pharma too.

Investigational uses of psilocybin and MDMA – two illicit drugs associated with recreational use and abuse in the US – will soon enter the later stages of clinical development for the treatment of CNS disorders including depression, addiction and post-traumatic stress disorder.