With an increasingly aging global population, neurological disorders have become a major cause of death and disability worldwide. Despite the significant investments that continue to be made in research and development in the neurological field, the discovery of new drugs targeting many CNS disorders, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, has proved to be difficult.

Although the product pipeline for vaccines and therapeutics targeting COVID-19 is top of mind right now, investors are also keeping a close eye on companies involved in the development of medicines targeting cancer and the central nervous system. According to financings tracked by BioWorld and deals and grants logged in Cortellis, the therapeutic areas of cancer, neurology and psychiatric attracted the highest amounts of investments last year with a collective $101.9 billion and $27.5 billion raised, respectively.

Investors continue to keep a close eye on the progress of companies involved in developing medicines targeting the central nervous system and, in the main, their reaction has been generally positive. The BioWorld Neurological Diseases index, a price-weighted index of public biopharmaceutical companies that are focused on developing therapies to treat neurological diseases, closed the year up over 16% and after, a dip in January, is now tracking up more than 12% by market close on Friday Feb. 21, well ahead of the general markets for the same period.

After dropping to its lowest valuation at the end of September, the BioWorld Neurological Diseases index, a price-weighted index of public biopharmaceutical companies that are focused on developing therapies to treat neurological diseases, got on a roll and climbed 22% during the next two months. However, a surprising trial failure reported by Sage Therapeutics Inc. last week served to eat into those index gains.