It wasn't only biopharma equities that suffered during the year. Going public also posed a challenge for companies. While the final count of 31 newly minted U.S. public biopharmaceutical companies sounds a respectable number for the year, we have come to expect much more based on statistics compiled by BioWorld. For example, a total of 54 companies successfully graduated to the public arena in 2015, collectively generating almost $5 billion, twice the amount generated by this year's crop of graduates.
It appears that precision medicine, big data and next-generation sequencing together with breakthrough technologies in immuno-oncology, gene therapy and gene editing have a long way to go before their full impact is fully expressed in terms of the discovery and market approval of new 21st century medicines. The return on research investments was below par this year, as measured by the number of new molecular entities (NMEs) that received the FDA's green light.
With only nine trading days left this year, it appears that biopharma will finish 2016 underwater and close the doors on what will go down as one of the sector's worst performing 12 months for several years.
In order for patients to derive benefit from their medications they have to adhere to the prescribed treatment regimen. In an ideal world dispensed medications for chronic conditions are taken by the patient exactly as prescribed. Sadly, doctors' orders are not always followed for a variety of complex reasons including such factors as the emergence of side effects, length of treatment, the frequency of dosing and severity of the disease to name just a few. As a result medication non-adherence is one of the most serious problems in health care and poses a significant financial drain on the health care system.
New York-based Ophthotech Corp. saw its shares plummet 86.4 percent in heavy trading Monday on news that the pre-specified primary endpoint of mean change in visual acuity at 12 months, measured as best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) in terms of additional letter gains, was not achieved in its two pivotal phase III trials investigating the superiority of Fovista (pegpleranib) anti-platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF) therapy in combination with Lucentis (ranibizumab) anti-VEGF therapy compared to Lucentis monotherapy for the treatment of wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD).
In order for patients to derive benefit from their medications they have to adhere to the prescribed treatment regimen. In an ideal world dispensed medications for chronic conditions are taken by the patient exactly as prescribed. Sadly, doctors' orders are not always followed for a variety of complex reasons including such factors as the emergence of side effects, length of treatment, the frequency of dosing and severity of the disease to name just a few. As a result medication non-adherence is one of the most serious problems in health care and poses a significant financial drain on the health care system.
With just one month to go before biopharma draws the curtains on a year that has seen its fair share of lows for the sector, it received an early Christmas present following Donald Trump's unexpected victory in the presidential election. Share values of drug developers have soared in the wake of the result because it came with the removal, at least for now, of fears that drug-pricing policy issues will be high on the political agenda going forward.
What a turn of events! Now that Donald Trump has been given the keys to the White House following what turned out to be a close presidential election race – combined with the return of another Republican-controlled congress – the results of the presidential race have turned out to be a much needed tonic for an ailing biopharmaceutical sector that was expecting a much different outcome in Washington last week.
The incidence of asthma has grown steadily over the past decade and in the U.S. it is estimated that more than 22 million people have asthma, with asthma-related hospitalizations exceeding 400,000 per year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Worldwide, roughly 242 million people are believed to suffer from asthma, with an estimated 5 percent unable to achieve symptom control on existing therapies. It is not surprising then that the pipeline for new therapies to treat this condition is expanding and a number of promising biological compounds have progressed into late stage testing and onto the market.
What a turn of events! Now that Donald Trump has been given the keys to the White House following what turned out to be a close presidential election race – combined with the return of another Republican-controlled congress – the results of the presidential race have turned out to be a much needed tonic for an ailing biopharmaceutical sector that was expecting a much different outcome in Washington last week.
