With only weeks to go in 2022, the three major pharmas each had inked between 16 and 20 deals. Meanwhile, Pfizer has been less busy with 12 deals, but those include M&A totaling $18.2bn.

Mersana will help J&J develop antibody-drug conjugates against three targets, while AstraZeneca out-licenses a candidate for peripheral artery disease to Regio.

Novartis/TScan and Gilead/Kite/oNKo-innate partnerships seek to advance cancer cell therapy. J&J, Bayer among the latest pharmas to unveil partnerships to fight the novel coronavirus.

New CEOs have been appointed at Cell Medica, Mologen, Navitor Pharmaceuticals, Tenaya Therapeutics and Oncobiologics, while a new CMO has been recruited to IGM Biosciences, a vice president of clinical development at Provention Bio and a CFO at Centrexion Therapeutics.