With 53 drugs approved by the FDA, 2020 was very dynamic in terms of new approvals in spite of the sanitary crisis and the economic lockdown. But in the end, which products have taken the lead and reached the most sales?

The values of public CDMO shares continued to outperform in 2020, with growth for the best between 70 and over 90% (Lonza, West Pharma and Catalent).

How did major companies manage their businesses in 2020, amid Covid-19 pandemic, economic lockdowns and above all, "ups and downs" in R&D to bring to the market vaccines candidates against the virus?
PHARMAnetwork reviews the Top 5 pharmaceutical companies' 2020 financial results and 2021 forecasts.

The global market demand for anti-Covid vaccines is much higher than the current production capacities of Western countries. This demand could last for several years depending on several factors such as the duration of the effectiveness of vaccine immunization, the arrival of new variants leading to new vaccination campaigns, etc.

Year-to-date tally at the European Medicines Agency (EMA) suggests the trend for new drug approvals in 2020 hasn't suffered from the Covid-19 pandemic. At the end of the 11 Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) meetings, some 96 new medicines were approved in Europe throughout the year.

As Commissioner Stephen Hahn will depart the FDA by January 20, when the Biden administration takes office, review of drug approvals in 2020 shows the Covid-19 pandemic did not slow the trend. According to the FDA, the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research approved 53 "first-of-their-kind medicines" for the US market....

While Pfizer/BioNTech's Covid-19 vaccine candidate gained emergency use authorization in the UK on December 2, making it the first in Europe to get the green light, what happened in the rest of the pharma-industry? Many things for sure, as all companies are not exclusively working on vaccines.

The European Health Union is on track; mid-November European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen offered a €5 billion budget dedicated to health over the next seven years...

The R&D on Covid-19 vaccines and treatments is not the only goal of Big Pharma. Interest in gene therapy development remains very high, as evidenced by several recent deals and agreements.

Will aducanumab become one day the first medication approved for Alzheimer? What happened last week confirms if needed that the story has not been written yet and that the cycle failure is not over...

Were the Top 10 best-selling pharmaceutical drugs in the world impacted by social distancing measures, delays in elective surgeries, prioritization of Covid-19 patients during the first nine months of 2020? As most drugmakers have just announced their third quarter results, it is clear that Big Pharma's resilience is a reality, while blockbusters still make their way...

The annual meeting of the European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO) took place virtually this year, due to the Covid-19 pandemic. New treatment options were presented, new results were unveiled that could accelerate future adoption of medicines.

February 3, Jazz Pharmaceuticals agreed to pen a deal worth up to $7.2 billion for cannabinoid GW Pharmaceuticals, whose epilepsy med Epidiolex could become a blockbuster in sales.

NextPharma, CDMO specializing in finished oral and topical dosage forms (including sterile ophthalmics), acquires the industrial sites of Ploermel (FR) and Edinburgh (UK) from Lonza...

AstraZeneca's $39 billion acquisition of Alexion strengthens several assumptions: firstly, rare-disease segment is more and more becoming a key issue for big and small pharmaceutical companies; secondly mega-deals are not over (it is the largest deal in AstraZeneca's history). And thirdly, there is still future for the pharmaceutical industry outside Covid-19 R&D.

EQT IX, through Roar BidCo AB, announced a public offering of SEK 220 in cash per share to the shareholders of Recipharm AB and SEK 1,427,010 per Recipharm convertible bond with a par value of 1 000,000 SEK.