The mantra for a while has been that it's not good enough to get your drug approved, you've got to get it payed for, too. For gene therapy treatments, the payment is more complex, and you can add manufacturing and supply chain logistics to the list of challenges.

The number of biopharma deals and mergers and acquisitions completed are on a downward slide quarter-by-quarter, although when taken as a whole, the industry in 2019 has completed as many transactions and is hitting a higher deal value than the year before, while M&A values are up by 32%.