A highly impressive improvement in disease-free survival in ADAURA is set to pitch AstraZeneca’s best-selling product into a new untapped market, early-stage EGFRm NSCLC, reaping a possible $3bn in extra sales.

The largest-ever rise in the number of active R&D companies, particularly in China, helped propel an unprecedented increase in the size of the biopharma pipeline in 2019. Meanwhile, the number of new active substances launched in their first market last year dropped as 2018’s superlative performance gave way to something more usual.

Kadmon’s treatment for graft-versus-host disease, belumosudil continues to perform well in its pivotal ROCKstar study, setting the stage for a US filing under the FDA’s pilot Real-Time Oncology Review program.

Gilead and Galapagos’s closely watched JAK inhibitor filgotinib has produced some promising Phase IIb/III data in ulcerative colitis. The question now is whether they will be enough to allow the product to put in a strong showing in this competitive market.

TG Therapeutics, developing treatments for B-cell malignancies, adds an authority in lymphoma as CSO, and Roche hires a Broad Institute exec to head up Genentech’s research and early development. Plus, Ascendis Pharma, with programs in endocrinology/oncology, picks a global chief commercial officer.

The number of new active substances launched in their first market in 2019 dropped as 2018’s superlative performance gave way to something more usual.