The promise of precision medicine is beginning to bear fruit as deadly diseases are made treatable, doctors use genetic information to guide treatment decisions,
The promise of precision medicine is beginning to bear fruit as deadly diseases are made treatable, doctors use genetic information to guide treatment decisions, and the convergence of information, communications, and biological technology reinvents the practice of medicine.
The arrival of this new age of medicine has captured the imagination of investors, who are pouring record investments into these emerging areas. Privately held life-sciences companies have raised $7 billion through the first five months of 2014, representing a 36.2% increase compared to the same period last year. Investment in early-stage companies drove the increase as seed, series A and series B investment jumped 182% during the period to $2.9 billion. The surge in funding is going into innovative areas such as gene therapy, immune-oncology, and digital healthcare technologies that promise to move the needle on the delivery of care and improve outcomes for patients with once-intractable diseases.
As Big Pharma shifts its resources away from internal R&D to externalizing innovation, investors see opportunities in backing companies with cutting-edge technologies. And venture investors, boosted by liquidity from the robust capital markets, are backing startups up with adequate funding to allow them to validate their technologies rather than needing to constantly seek new capital.
Over the past year, investors have pumped more than $2 billion into gene therapy, immunotherapies, and digital-health companies, including more than $1.3 billion invested in startups and $819 million raised by nine companies through initial public offerings . Almost every big pharmaceutical company with an oncology program is developing cancer immunotherapies, while companies focused on genetically inherited diseases are exploring gene-therapy solutions.
For the rest of this article by G. Steven Burrill, click on BioPharm International’s website here.
Key Findings of the NIAGARA and HIMALAYA Trials
November 8th 2024In this episode of the Pharmaceutical Executive podcast, Shubh Goel, head of immuno-oncology, gastrointestinal tumors, US oncology business unit, AstraZeneca, discusses the findings of the NIAGARA trial in bladder cancer and the significance of the five-year overall survival data from the HIMALAYA trial, particularly the long-term efficacy of the STRIDE regimen for unresectable liver cancer.
Fake Weight Loss Drugs: Growing Threat to Consumer Health
October 25th 2024In this episode of the Pharmaceutical Executive podcast, UpScriptHealth's Peter Ax, Founder and CEO, and George Jones, Chief Operations Officer, discuss the issue of counterfeit weight loss drugs, the potential health risks associated with them, increasing access to legitimate weight loss medications and more.
AbbVie’s Emraclidine Fails to Reduce Schizophrenia Symptoms Compared to Placebo
November 11th 2024Results from the Phase II EMPOWER trial found that emraclidine failed to meet its primary endpoint of reducing Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale scores after six weeks of treatment for schizophrenia.