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Our monthly roundup of 'business of science' stories from across Springer Nature’s portfolio of journals explores the relationships between academia, startups and big pharma, as well as following the progress of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout.
Raveena obtained her bachelor's degree in biochemistry from the University of Leeds, UK. She has worked in the biopharma industry for more than 15 years, focusing on dealmaking, partnering and licensing throughout. In her first role, Raveena started as an editorial assistant, moving on to become content editor, specifically involved with conducting partner searches to identify both products/technologies and partners for pharmaceutical clients. She then worked for a biopharma reports publisher, editing and writing dealmaking-focused reports. In 2015 Raveena became the editor of Biopharma Dealmakers.
Interactions between startups and large pharma are pivotal to bring therapeutics successfully to the market, startup entrepreneurs need to plan how and when to best start the relationship.
Last year was one of the best ever for biotech financing across the globe. Stock indices remained up through December. Initial public offerings (IPOs) had a particularly successful year, with more than 73 life science firms collectively raising over $22 billion.
Of the 30 top-selling drugs in 2000, only 5 were traceable to biotech universities, but by 2018, more than one-half of the top 30 drugs were sourced from academia. However, few data are available on their performance and the magnitude of their impact. This study of life sciences technology licensing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology looks at the effects of technology transfer by academia.
Despite COVID-19’s huge global impact in 2020, it had relatively little impact on drug sales. Lisa Urquhart, editor of Evaluate Vantage, a pharma and biotech news service, looks at which companies are seeing the biggest product sales.
The FDA has granted Emergency Use Authorization to Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine, the first single-shot COVID-19 vaccine and the first adenovirus-based vaccine to secure a regulatory green light in the USA.
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery
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