Scrip's latest rankings of the top 100 revenue earners in the medical technology industry, published in Outlook 2019, show the groups leading the global market tightening their grip further in 2017. This was partly a function of providers choosing to partner more and more with fewer suppliers who can offer a wider provision of services. But it was steady as she goes for most of the multinational medtechs, with some major exceptions, and there will be more M&A reflected in next year's rankings, based on 2018 revenues.

With a challenging new decade of scientific discovery looming, 2019 is the positioning year for biopharma to make value, transparency, information and culture work seamlessly to achieve innovations that matter to patients, payers and society.

The still somewhat loosely defined concept of 'digital health' continues to take concrete forms through recent deals in Japan, where major pharma firms are building initiatives related mainly to patient well-being.

Following an exchange decision that Samsung BioLogics should remain listed, the company has vowed to improve management transparency by beefing up internal controls and supervision over accounting. The decision is set to ease worries over the possible negative impact of an accounting probe on contract development and manufacturing orders, although the company still faces a court battle with financial authorities over its accounting standards.

CEO Clive Meanwell helped to shape the company over his nearly 22 years at the helm, including when it marketed a portfolio of hospital-based drugs. Now the company is solely focused on shepherding the PCSK9 inhibitor inclisiran to the finish line.

Silence will receive a small royalty on future sales of Alnylam’s Onpattro in Europe, and Alnylam is free to use Silence IP in other products.

It was inevitable that Brexit would be the key theme of an interview with Danish Medicines Agency head Thomas Senderovitz earlier this year. The senior European regulator oversees one of the agencies that has taken on new staff to help deal with the impact, in drug regulatory terms, of the vote by the UK in June 2016 to leave the European Union. Senderovitz also chairs the management group of the EU Heads of Medicines Agencies network.

The PD-L1 inhibitor's label excludes NSCLC patients with EGFR or ALK mutations, which could have been an advantage, but the indication largely reflects the registrational IMpower150 clinical trial's population.

Payers are increasingly likely to implement new strategies to manage price negotiations for immuno-oncology combinations, as competition  heats up among the drug class. Mechanisms allowing for the negotiation of different prices for combination therapies do not exist at present, but payers insist that new tools must emerge.

In "very top-line" Phase IIb data, the magnitude of the treatment effect for valbenazine in children with Tourette syndrome was weaker than expected, and its loss from active development means there will be only a handful of candidates under evaluation for the disorder.

Novartis executives highlighted their stars from its refined pipeline during the company’s first R&D day since Vas Narasimhan took the helm and after a cull that reduced the firm’s development portfolio by 20%.

The cacophony of noise in the modern world is one factor driving the loss of hearing throughout humankind, a condition that until now has not been thought amenable to pharmacological intervention. But with small-molecule approaches to regenerating cells in the inner ear bearing fruit, biotech and pharmaceutical companies are taking renewed interest in the sector.