Thanks to the pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus identified in late December 2019, 2020 was the year of COVID-19. It was a year of lockdowns and social distancing, a year of Zoom meetings and virtual conferences, and a year when donning a face mask sometimes came to signify a political rather than health decision. For the biopharma sector, the impact of COVID-19 was wide-ranging, in many cases showing the industry at its best, with the speedy mobilization of scientific efforts that spawned vaccine approvals at record rates and a host of therapeutics making their way through development. But biopharma suffered COVID-19-related setbacks as well, from a negative impact on clinical trials to the increasing politicization of science that could make the industry’s job harder as the world moves hopefully to end the pandemic in 2021. In looking back over the past year, BioWorld has compiled the biggest trends and lessons from the year of COVID-19.