Gianfranco Nazzi will be taking over as head of the Spanish company shortly and the Barcelona-based firm's prospects look good as its dermatology portfolio and pipeline blossom.

Lilly is planning for growth even beyond the loss of patent protection for Trulicity in 2027. In addition to internal R&D, Smiley said a third of new drugs will come from business development. 

CEO Amit Munshi told the J.P. Morgan meeting the company will double the size of its clinical-stage cardiovascular disease pipeline with the addition of temanogrel.

New drug development is an increasingly communal enterprise. In Vivo examines how one major US academic institution – the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) – is expanding its range of research contacts to open new areas of therapy and shorten the transition from bench to the bedside.  Its commercial impact is considerable: over the past two decades, private-sector VC’s have invested more than $2bn in UCLA-backed innovations, with 26 start-ups launched through the university in 2019 alone. Amir Naiberg, UCLA’s point man on technology transfer, explains the factors that have made the university a successful advocate for partnerships that produce results for patients.