Lilly and Novo Nordisk were top performers among large-cap pharma stocks, while the stock prices of Bristol Myers and Gilead declined the most.

Six biopharma companies have filed to list their shares on US exchanges so far this year, but the sums they are seeking are small.

Without a mega-merger like 2023’s Pfizer/Seagan takeout, M&A deals grew smaller during the first half of 2024, while volume rose. In alliance deals, H1 2024 activity somewhat mirrored activity from H1 2023.

Keytruda enjoyed its fifth consecutive quarter as the world’s top-selling drug in the first three months of 2024. As Comirnaty and Spikevax fell out of the list, Vertex’s cystic fibrosis pill Trikafta/Kaftrio became one of the top 10 best-selling drugs for the first time.

J&J topped the league table for CEO pay in 2023, a position it has held for three of the four past years. Meanwhile, the two companies that arguably generated the most buzz in 2023 neatly depict the stark contrast between the US and Europe when it comes to executive remuneration.

With several new drugs progressing for the estimated 70,000 patients in China with DMD, a recent setback for Nippon Shinyaku's contender and progress for Chinese gene therapy developers are adding both uncertainty and likely competition in an untapped market with pressing medical need.

Bukwang and subsidiary Contera have become the latest to fail to progress a novel Parkinson's therapy to late-stage trials after a Phase II miss, although several other Korean firms remain in the race for the challenging indication, albeit mainly in Phase I-II.

Most of the companies with blockbuster drugs approved over the past decade oversaw their clinical development internally. Lilly holds the lead with eight blockbusters developed in-house.

Scrip analyzed data on top-selling drugs to see how long it takes to surpass $1bn in revenues and grow into $5bn and even $10bn brands.

A Scrip analysis of the industry’s top-selling drugs examines the power of indication expansion to drive revenue growth.

The industry’s top-selling drugs generate billions in revenues each year. Scrip analyzed data on nearly 200 blockbuster drugs to see which are forecast to make the most at peak and over a 14-year time horizon.

Indian firms accounted for over 50% of prescription volumes in five of the top 10 therapy areas in the US in 2022, as also 15% of the volume share of biosimilars, delivering savings and widening patient coverage a study by IQVIA said, while also highlighting supply chain risks that need attention.

Pfizer/BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine Comirnaty toppled after recording the highest ever annual sales for a pharmaceutical in 2022, while Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic climbed rapidly. But Merck & Co’s immuno-oncology blockbuster Keytruda was secure in the number one spot in 2023 as COVID-19 receded.

The highs of the COVID-19 era, and the lows that supplanted it, are beginning to fade.

A year is a long time in biopharma. Pharmaprojects’ annual pipeline review finds changes in the therapeutic spread of drug candidates and a reordering of the top R&D companies, as Chinese firms made their presence felt all the more over the past 12 months.

A look at the depth of clinical responses seen with various MASH therapies suggests that Madrigal could eventually face serious competition.