Rich Horgan believes that there’s an alternative path to drug development that can lower costs and the time it takes to bring drugs to market. He is trying to apply it to the field of rare and ultra-rare diseases.

Drug developers need policies and technological infrastructure to execute on their goal of being patient-focused. At a minimum, this means a compliant way to engage patients and truly hear their voices; at its most effective, patient engagement also meets patients where they are – whenever and wherever that may be.

Abcam’s acquisition comes two months after its board announced the exploration of strategic alternatives that could include the sale of the company. Danaher beat out at least 20 companies that were potential buyers of the life sciences tools and antibody development firm.

Biopharma companies are harnessing AI tools for multiple aspects of drug development such as identifying drug development targets, modeling a drug’s effect on the body, and more.

Risk-based quality management, or RBQM, is the process by which pharmaceutical organizations monitor and manage quality throughout clinical trials.

Boston Consulting Group hosted a panel during the annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in which Merck’c chief strategy officer, a healthcare leader from Goldman Sachs, an investment executive and a senior medical devices executive from Medtronic weighed in on trends the life sciences industry can expect to see in 2023.

Many pharma and medical device companies will look inward, with the goal of standardizing and modernizing even highly regulated activities. Here’s a closer look at some important industry trends for 2023.

By easing regulatory requirements for animal testing, the Act allows scientists to use innovative, leading-edge technologies more fully in future drug development strategies. 

Risk-based quality management is a data monitoring approach that accelerates the drug development pathway without compromising on safety – and one that is enhanced by the use of technologies such as artificial intelligence.

Innovation hub and startup engagement models in the life sciences can take one of a few flavors with equity investments, commercial partnerships and accelerator programs covering most of the cases.

The MedCity INVEST PhrmaTech virtual conference, scheduled for Tuesday, July 26, offers free registration and a compelling day of conversations exploring the convergence of the health tech and biopharma sectors.

The model of investing huge amounts of money into one drug to try to recoup it later is problematic at best and unsustainable at worst. Platform technology provides a better, more cost-effective way forward.

Artificial intelligence can help drug study teams solve operational, scientific and ethical challenges. For example, AI can be used to flag real-time trends emerging in drug trials that might otherwise not be obvious until the end of a study when all the data is analyzed.

In a competitive market, data that help companies find these critical resources can accelerate clinical trials and shorten time to market – sometimes by years.

Microsoft seeks to change the way pharma industry companies use technology to navigate human resource challenges and restore confidence in drug development supply chains.

Bringing in market access and collaboration earlier in the process, viewing reimbursement as the last leg of the drug developmental journey, and collaborating across key functions are practices we can evolve so that as many patients as possible can reap the rewards that are waiting for them.

Blending computational biology and AI-based methods, the goal is to identify new targets, pair these with effective chemistry, and define biomarkers to optimally position novel therapies.

We need to embrace principles from the tech industry and incorporate lessons learned from the pandemic to address the challenges of R&D productivity in pharma.

This pandemic has shown that collaboration, biosimulation and decentralized trials, and active preparedness programs lead to fast, effective drug development when we really need it.  

Cho discusses Bristol Myers Squibb’s research efforts in the field of protein degradation to advance potential treatments for a broad range of diseases. In a recent MedCity Pivot Podcast, he also shared insights on his approach to drug discovery, perspectives on dealing with failure, and some of the work his teams are doing in the COVID-19 space.

The latest funding brings total investment in the company to $750 million. The money has gone, in part, toward licensing of promising drug candidates in breast, lung and other cancers.

Together, the two companies say can give drugmakers a better view at the cellular level of how a patient’s immune system is responding to a cerain therapy.

The company, led by an ex-Palantir engineer and a former Harvard postdoctoral researcher, has developed machine learning algorithms to identify nuances in cells, mechanisms of action and biomarkers that could aid immunotherapy and cell therapy development.

The company has signed an initial partnership with Genentech that will focus on understanding the genetic components that are related to a person’s risk of developing ocular diseases like macular degeneration.

Adam Schechter, an adviser to Merck’s CEO, said at the Veeva Summit Tuesday that many primary care diseases – such as cardiovascular disease and Alzheimer’s – still have significant unmet needs.

Last month, it was reported that IBM would stop selling Watson for Drug Discovery, but executives in the field of biopharma artificial intelligence say the field is still going strong.

The report, from IQVIA, stated that growth in the number of registration studies with active controls indicates payers’ increasing interest in comparative-effectiveness data.

The in vivo molecule was discovered under a two-year-old partnership between the two companies to discovery drugs using artificial intelligence. It will be developed for COPD.

Nonprofit research institutes have faced a tough financial road, but Scripps research is exploring a new model for drug development.

Biopharma companies need to start conversations with patients as early as in Phase I during the drug development process and, most importantly, maintain a feedback loop with patients throughout the whole development process.