Growth

Marcio Coelho, chief commercial officer of robotic assisted surgery company CMR Surgical, updated In Vivo on the company’s unique approach to expanding uptake of its technologies in global markets, including those that are underserved in RAS devices.

Increases in employee numbers often go hand-in-hand with valuation rises as companies are acquired or product success demand increases in sales staff or manufacturing capacity. However, this is not always the case.  

While biotech layoffs and big pharma restructuring dominate the news in 2023, the sector’s job market remains buoyant.

The US FDA could approve as many new gene therapies in 2023 as it has in the previous five years. Development in the field has rapidly accelerated, but still faces hurdles.

Michael White, the new UK head of life sciences at HSBC Innovation Banking, made the move from California to join the UK group shortly before Silicon Valley Bank in London collapsed in March 2023. He talks to In Vivo about turbulent life science markets and the future life sciences strategy at HSBC.

As well as making waves in the treatment of obesity, debate has been stirring around the ability of GLP-1s to combat drug addiction, manage heart disease and also protect individuals against Parkinson’s disease. How can medtechs get in on the potential gains? 

System interoperability and building trust in AI capabilities are central to the strategic collaboration and organic growth plans at GE HealthCare, according to US and Canada regional president and CEO Catherine Estrampes, who spoke to In Vivo as the company released the findings of a major survey of clinicians and patients on future healthcare system needs.

Although late 2022 and early 2023 saw a few large transactions, a look at deal activity in the first half of the year shows bolt-on M&A remains in vogue for biopharma. Alliances are down from first half 2022.

With a strong late-stage anti-inflammatory molecule in its pipeline, the challenge for Abivax is to garner the funds to take its obefazimod program forward. To that end, the company is continuing to do a major overhaul of personnel and is sharpening its corporate vision.

Sofinnova Partners has played a key role in defining the medtech investment space for the past 50 years, helping bring to market a plethora of life-saving technologies, even when they appear, initially, to be risky.

Biotechs are ready to partner or sell assets to raise cash while turmoil continues in the financial markets, but they are doing so at lower valuations, with IRA and FTC concerns putting further pressure on deal terms.

Erin Wenzel, director of alliance management at Spero Therapeutics, talks to In Vivo about working with a big pharma partner and Spero’s strategy for future growth.

Partnering has changed in many ways in the last 18 months. Financial markets have all but closed to start-ups and investors are consolidating asset bases in the expectation of relatively high inflation continuing for the next few years.

The R&D productivity of the top 30 largest biopharma companies decreased slightly from 2021 to 2022 and the sector saw the lowest number of FDA approvals in the past 10 years. 

Investor attention is turning increasingly to new products and new areas of growth like obesity, Alzheimer’s disease and RSV as big blockbusters face increasing competitive pressure. 

Restricted financial avenues raised many open questions at the recent LSX World Congress about the kind of deals that will shape biopharma pipelines in the coming 12-18 months.