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Pharma R&D’s COVID-19 Scar

 
• By Duncan Emerton and Daniel Chancellor

Months of pandemic-induced disruption to health care systems and freedom of movement undoubtedly carries a cost. For the biopharmaceutical industry, this can be mitigated by its essential role in providing therapeutic interventions and leading the fightback via prophylactic vaccines. This softens the blow somewhat, certainly compared to other industries that are fully exposed to COVID-19 headwinds.

3D Coronavirus cells

The short-term hit to company financials as reported in the 2020 second quarter earnings season, with patient visits greatly reduced during April and May, will be compounded by a longer-term loss of R&D momentum as clinical trial sponsors have been forced to take defensive measures. While it is still too early within the lifetime of the pandemic to point toward any slowdown in regulatory filings and drug approvals, this article quantifies the disruption to clinical trials and the accompanying slowdown to pipeline progression.

The pandemic has certainly wounded biopharma R&D, and with an acceleration back to normal levels unlikely in the immediate future, there will leave a noticeable COVID-shaped scar heading into 2021....

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