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.

Having a single patient's complete health care information all in one place was a dream that US visionaries began to talk up around a decade ago. The idea was that fast, electronic support for doctors would aid clinical decision making and efficiency. Ten years on, there is still much work to do before the dream is realized, says Philips' Carla Kriwet. But a solution is within reach.

Professor Sir John Bell talks to In Vivo about how the life sciences sector has evolved during his career, lessons he has learned along the way, and the biggest challenges and changes ahead for the industry in 2019.

China's new so-called “4+7” drug bidding pilot scheme, already expected to be a killer for some companies, has cut prices by as much as 90%, leaving all but two multinationals to bid successfully and accept the revised levels. The big reductions could also lead to further price erosion for the winning products.

Lucia and Giovanni Aleotti have been cleared of fraud against the Italian health system, and will continue to lead the Florentine company transformed into a major multinational by their father.

The Singh brothers' feud has moved from a war of words allegedly to blows, with any efforts at reconciliation looking bleak. The siblings also find themselves in tight spot as Daiichi Sankyo presses ahead to enforce a INR35bn damages award.

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.

David Ricks will lead IFPMA into 2020 with an eye on how to meet the healthcare needs of the world’s aging population, and stepping up the power of private-public partnerships.

Pipeline Watch is a weekly snapshot of selected late-stage clinical trial events announced by pharmaceutical and biotech companies at medical and industry conferences, in financial and company presentations, and in company releases and statements.

Conatus’ emricasan fails to meet the primary endpoint for portal hypertension in NASH patients with cirrhosis, but firm stresses promising subgroup data. Genfit hits Phase II primary endpoint in PBC with elafibranor, which is also in Phase III for NASH.

The latest failure of the combination of AZ's PD-L1 inhibitor and its CLTA4 inhibitor is in advanced head and neck cancer. It follows recent failures of the MYSTIC and ARCTIC trials in lung cancer.