Biopharma financings are tracking only 3% below 2019’s full-year total, but the volume of activity is at its lowest point since 2017. With a total of $56.1 billion raised, 2022 is currently the sixth best financing year on record, but it is significantly behind some of the years that rank higher.

All gains made throughout the summer have vanished as the BioWorld Cancer Index (BCI) has hit its lowest point in 2022. Down 41.9% this year, BCI diverged in October from the path taken by both the Nasdaq Biotechnology Index (NBI) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), both of which are moving upward. Still, NBI is down 7.8% and DJIA is down 5.4% for the year.

The world is emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic, as both cases and deaths have remained consistently low in recent months, despite continuous mutation of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Nevertheless, there is a shuffling of candidates in the arsenal as new variants bump once-effective therapies and the next generation of options enter the arena.

As the days have grown darker throughout November, global regulatory activity and U.S. approvals have continued to drop, marking the month as the slowest of 2022. Compared with this time last year, regulatory news is down by 9% and FDA approvals are down by a quarter. On top of that, new molecular entity clearances in the U.S. are at a six-year low.