The high expectations that have been swirling around the nanomedicine field for almost a decade are still yet to be fully realized. However, there are promising signs that significant investments in early stage research over the past few years are starting to reap dividends with new generation therapeutic applications moving into clinical testing. The field is now expanding rapidly, and analysts and industry observers have identified it as a key enabling technology that is likely to impact the development of new therapeutics and diagnostics.

The high expectations that have been swirling around the nanomedicine field for almost a decade are still yet to be fully realized. However, there are promising signs that significant investments in early stage research over the past few years are starting to reap dividends with new generation therapeutic applications moving into clinical testing.

There is no doubt that transformative therapies have attracted the attention of everyone, particularly investors, since they first started to gain regulatory approval. The excitement for the prospects of those new therapies has certainly influenced the share prices of companies using next-generation technologies.

At the midpoint of the year, the global biopharma industry has recorded 554 partnering deals – a total that suggests that companies are still maintaining a high priority on business development through collaborations to help them execute on their business plans. The volume of partnering deals recorded by BioWorld in the second quarter, at 281, was about the same as those completed in the first quarter. However, year to date, the total number of transactions are about 10 percent down from the total recorded at this time last year. (See Volume of biopharma deals, right.)

At the midpoint of the year, the global biopharma industry has recorded 554 partnering deals – a total that suggests that companies are still maintaining a high priority on business development through collaborations to help them execute on their business plans. The volume of partnering deals recorded by BioWorld in the second quarter, at 281, was about the same as those completed in the first quarter. However, year to date, the total number of transactions are about 10 percent down from the total recorded at this time last year. 

It was a positive and productive second quarter as far as biopharma's innovation engine was concerned. Following the six new molecular entities (NMEs) approved in the first quarter, the period saw 14 products receive the agency's green light. At the halfway point last year, 23 NMEs had been approved and the industry appears to be on pace, with the current 20 approvals, to test its recent high watermark for new drug approvals established last year at 46, a total that ranks as the second highest number of approvals all time, just behind 1996 when 53 new medicines were approved. 

The prevailing sentiment swirling around the biopharma sector is decidedly mixed. A survey conducted by RBC Capital Markets on investor views found that in the positive column investors are enthusiastic about the emergence of technology platforms such as gene therapy, cellular therapies and gene editing, but the industry's earnings report, while previously "viewed as a tailwind at the beginning of the year, it is now viewed as a headwind (perhaps after the lackluster 1Q and poor performance among large-caps)."

The global biopharmaceutical sector brought in more than $15 billion to its collective coffers in the second quarter of the year, adding to the almost $23 billion it raised in the first quarter. According to BioWorld data, the $38 billion generated in the first half of the year overshadowed the $18.79 billion raised in the same period last year. The 2018 total now represents a significant record for the amount of cash that has been invested into the industry during a six-month period, beating by a wide margin the previous record established in 2015 when $27.2 billion was raised. 

The public offerings by immuno-oncology-focused Forty Seven Inc., which is developing anti-CD47 antibodies against a number of cancers, and Jerusalem-based Entera Bio Ltd. Thursday brought the number of biopharma companies graduating to the U.S. public ranks to 14 this month. According to BioWorld's public financings database, you have to travel back to August 2000 for a higher monthly total when 17 companies went public. At the halfway mark of the year, 35 companies have now completed their listings on U.S. exchanges, a torrid pace that could test the annual record number of issues for one year set back in 2014.

The public offerings by immuno-oncology-focused Forty Seven Inc., which is developing anti-CD47 antibodies against a number of cancers, and Jerusalem-based Entera Bio Ltd. Thursday brought the number of biopharma companies graduating to the U.S. public ranks to 14 this month. According to BioWorld's public financings database, you have to travel back to August 2000 for a higher monthly total when 17 companies went public.