Investors reacted negatively when Aptinyx’s lead candidate missed its primary endpoint in diabetic peripheral neuropathy, but CEO Riedel tries to emphasize the positives from the study while awaiting fibromyalgia data with NYX-2925.

R&D head John Tsai spoke with Scrip about culture change at Novartis as it moves toward advanced therapy platforms and embraces digital technologies, and offered a peek into what’s in store for R&D in 2019 and beyond.

A worst-case Brexit scenario – a disorderly one – has become more likely, making an already white-knuckled life sciences industry step up its preparations.

SVP/CSO Daniel Skovronsky says the company has invested in technology and biotech-like teams to speed up the process of translating targets identified in house into human data for novel drugs.

With a focus on innovative early stage European biotechs, Novo Seeds senior partner Stephan Christgau explains to Scrip how the investor picks opportunities and creates companies.

President of R&D Andrew Plump notes that much of the work to rationalize Takeda's pipeline after its Shire acquisition took place years ago when the Japanese pharma streamlined its R&D organization, but investments in data science to improve clinical trial outcomes and R&D efficiency are ongoing.

Public Company Edition: The usual mid-January surge in public offerings hasn't happened this year, since the SEC can't process new filings, but Alnylam, Acceleron and others apparently were prepared for a lengthy shutdown. Also, ARM reports cell and gene therapy financing data.

Valneva’s 2019 guidance has been boosted by the US Army’s Ixiaro vaccine order, as other products flourish in the pipeline.

Five-year collaboration will analyze data from thousands of cancer patients to optimize immunotherapy treatment and develop PET imaging tracers to stratify clinical trial participants. Also, MD Anderson starts 2019 with three new agreements.

Denali will collaborate with Sirion in Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases. Meanwhile, Lundbeck and Elevian unveil drug development partnerships with technology firms at the J.P. Morgan meeting.

Daily round-up of news and notes from the 2019 J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco: US generics see gains, researcher calls for more tech transfer, and biotech investor sentiment rises as big deals bring optimism – among other items from the last day of this year's JPM. 

Sean Bohen is to join Bahija Jallal, Mark Mallon and Ludovic Helfgott in leaving AstraZeneca as the company transitions to a new organizational structure announced last week by CEO Pascal Soriot.

Six months after selling its critical care business to refocus on rare diseases and oncology, EUSA Pharma has made its first move into those markets by licensing a Janssen product for a rare blood disorder.

What do biopharma leaders and experts expect for the coming year? Following on from therapeutic area insights in part 1, our interviewees consider the outlook for business trends, from M&A and financing to digital strategy, AI and organizational management.

A worst-case Brexit scenario – a disorderly one – has become more likely, making an already white-knuckled life sciences industry step up its preparations.

Annual payment plans for gene therapies appear closer to becoming reality now that bluebird bio detailed plans at J.P. Morgan. Novartis, Sarepta and others are also talking to payers about alternative payment models. Harvard Pilgrim's Michael Sherman applauded the effort in an interview.

How much therapies should cost and how they should be reimbursed are questions that are expected to dominate in 2019, according to industry experts and participants surveyed by Scrip on their expectations for the coming year. This is the focus for the final installment of our three-part Scrip Asks series.

The team at Jefferies believe that the Spanish and Italian firms, as well as Hikma, are looking like good bets for the year ahead.

UroGen's reverse thermal gel formulation of mitomycin produced a high rate of complete responses in patients with urothelial cancer; developing a commercialization strategy for the product will benefit from the experience of the company's new CEO.

Scrip journalists asked industry executives, consultants and analysts what they believe the big themes, trends and events will be in 2019. Here's what they told us about advances in therapeutic technologies and areas of clinical innovation.