In many ways it has been a challenging year for the biopharmaceutical industry and it is certain that company executives will be glad to close the curtains on a period that has made planning difficult. This is because they have had to deal with uncertainties swirling around such issues as health care reform and tax changes, a market sentiment for the sector that blew hot and cold, and the ongoing contentious debate over the price of drugs. Throughout the year, in BioWorld Insight, we published the views of company managers, business executives, government regulators and scientists on those and a variety of other topics, and in our popular annual feature we include a selection of those that helped define 2017.

Expect next year to be a challenging one for health care organizations. It will be notable for its persistent uncertainty and risk for the U.S. health industry, PwC Health Research Institute's (HRI) annual report, "Top health industry issues of 2018," now in its 12th year of publication, predicts.

After coming off a slow third quarter, where 10 biopharma companies completed their IPOs in the U.S., collectively raising just over $1 billion, the U.S. IPO market has picked up once again. Already, as we near the end of the fourth quarter, 10 biopharma companies have graduated to the public ranks on U.S. exchanges collectively raising over $1 billion.

The California life sciences sector continues to flourish and remains an engine of innovation for the state according to the latest 2018 California Life Sciences Industry Report. The current data reveals that there has been an annual 6 percent growth in the number of enterprises with about 45 percent of the 3,249 companies that are operating in California focused on biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, and there are 1,796 device and medical equipment manufacturers (55 percent).

Heading into the Thanksgiving Day holiday weekend in the U.S., investors who are focused on the biopharma sector will be thankful that the leading companies in the space had a great first half of the year because, since August, the combined stock valuations of those blue chip companies have slipped about 11 percent. With just over one month to go before the curtains are drawn on another year, the BioWorld Biopharmaceutical Index, a price weighted index comprising 21 of the leading biotech and big pharma companies by market cap, remains in positive territory, up 7 percent year to date (YTD).

The amount of money that the biopharma sector invests in research and development (R&D) continues to rise. Innovation certainly does not come cheap; it requires that companies developing breakthrough medicines have deep pockets as they need to invest up to $2.5 billion over a 10- to 15-year period in order to bring a new therapy to the marketplace, according to the most recent analysis by the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development of the average cost to develop and gain marketing approval for a new drug.

After coming off a slow third quarter, where 10 biopharma companies completed their IPOs in the U.S., collectively raising just over $1 billion, the U.S. IPO market has picked up once again. Already, at the halfway point in the fourth quarter, nine biopharma companies have graduated to the public ranks raising a total of almost $1 billion.

To counter the growing public health problem posed by antimicrobial resistance and the diminishing arsenal of effective therapies to combat those pathogens, governments are implementing regulatory policies and funding programs designed to create an environment that will encourage biopharmas to commit research and development resources toward the development of novel antibiotics and antifungals.