In February, the U.S. FDA greenlit 11 new drugs, a slight decrease from the 14 approvals seen in the same month the previous year but an increase from January’s tally of eight FDA approvals.

Precision psychiatry got some love at two quite different meetings this week, the European Congress of Neuropsychopharmacology’s New Frontiers meeting and BioEurope Spring. The New Frontiers Meeting, an annual two-day meeting dedicated to cutting-edge issues in brain disease research, focused on big-picture and scientific – at times almost philosophical – questions of how to get to a classification scheme for brain disorders that aligns with the underlying biology.

At first glance, the number of drugs that received accelerated approval from the U.S. FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) in 2023 was nothing to write home about. Yes, CDER granted nine accelerated approvals last year, up from six in 2022. But the proportion of novel drugs with accelerated approval was 16% both years. And when compared with the 12 drugs in 2020 and the 14 that received accelerated approval in 2021, last year’s crop was a little lackluster. However, a deeper look at the 2023 class of accelerated approvals shows a historic milestone. For the first time since the path was created in 1992, the number of novel biologics getting accelerated approval at CDER outpaced the number of small-molecule drugs.

In February, deals formed by biopharma firms reached $7.76 billion, down from January, which marked the sixth-highest month in BioWorld’s records going back to 2016. Meanwhile, biopharma M&As amounted to $18.22 billion for the month, positioning it among the top 10 highest-value months in the past four years.

In 2023, the BioWorld Neurological Diseases Index (BNDI) closed with a 4.36% increase, outperforming the Nasdaq Biotechnology Index (up 3.74%) but falling short of the surge seen in the Dow Jones Industrial Average (up 13.7%). The rebound marked a significant turnaround from November, when BNDI recorded an 18.37% year-to-date decline.

In February, the biopharma industry sustained the positive momentum observed in January, with total financings increasing 105.94%, reaching $22.3 billion compared to $10.83 billion the first month of the year. The amount positions February as the second-highest month in BioWorld’s records, trailing only May 2020, which saw $23.98 billion in total financings.