Ahead of the usual flurry of deal-making in January, Roche gets retinal cell therapy candidate from Lineage Cell Therapeutics, Pfizer subsidiary Amplyx licenses antiviral candidate to Vera, and GSK expands neurology tie-up with Ligand.

Revenues are still elusive for a surprising number of the novel drugs approved by the FDA five years ago. Emergent safety issues and confirmatory clinical trial failures were less common than lack of competitiveness as the main reason for revenue weakness.

The number of new drugs containing new active substances approved in the EU rose significantly in 2020, underpinned by a strong showing for orphan-designated products and a string of novel medicines for cancer and infectious diseases. Notable among the new clutch of approvals was the first ever COVID-19 vaccine, Pfizer/BioNTech's Comirnaty.

While Accord HealthCare has convinced the European Medicines Agency that its rivaroxaban generic should be approved in the EU, Bayer has warned that patent protection for Xarelto continues until at least late 2023. The EMA this week also recommend approval for a number of other new drugs.