As omicron subvariants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus take hold, global cases began to rise in the past month, just as the U.S. authorized its fourth COVID-19 vaccine and developers continue their work on a fall booster targeting BA.4 and BA.5. Worldwide deaths have remained lower than each of the last two pandemic years, signaling that the worst is over. It is clear, however, that as current treatments lose their effectiveness and the virus continues to evolve, efforts to contain the virus will be ongoing.

Keeping innovation growing at a fast clip while retaining new global supply chain capacity built up during the pandemic were the main topics of discussion at the Bio Asia-Taiwan conference July 27 in Taipei. With the theme of the conference, “Connecting the Asia Value Chain,” Taiwan Vice President Ching-Te Lai said the pandemic has demonstrated Taiwan’s resilience as well as the strength of the global biopharma industry.

The volume of clinical data in 2022 is down by 16.9% from last year. Pandemic efforts are still decreasing while three therapeutic areas dominate the news. Through the last week of July, there have been a total of 1,997 clinical entries, compared with 2,402 by this point in 2021.

After bottoming out at the end of May, BioWorld’s Drug Developers Index is making a slow, tedious climb back upwards. The index was down 23.18% for the year as of July 27, which is better than where it was at the end of each of the three prior months. It is following the same curve as the Nasdaq Biotechnology Index and the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which are down by 16.47% and 11.39%, respectively.

The U.S. FDA has approved fewer drugs and biologics in the first half of 2022 than in each of the five prior years and only one new molecular entity has received clearance since the end of May. While the volume of regulatory news is slightly down from last year, FDA approvals are showing a much deeper decline of 19.8%.