United States Pharmaceuticals & Biopharmaceuticals 2021

For many years, the life science industry has had breakthrough ideas bubbling under the surface, but accepted truths are difficult to change. For example, people took it as a given that it takes years to develop a vaccine, that virtual medicine will never scale for doctors or patients, and the regulatory system cannot adapt to innovation quickly enough to support lasting change. Over the past year, the US bio ecosystem turned this orthodoxy on its head, responding heroically, and faster than ever before in so many ways.

The rapid pace at which industry moved was enabled by decades of research by industry and academia, which formed the base for a mobilization never seen in the life sciences. Thanks to America’s pharma and biopharma industry, supported by a university system that is the envy of the world, as well as tech transfer, large pharma, fast-growing biotech, manufacturing, a well functioning incubator system, and an abundance of talent, skills and know-how regarding discovery, clinical trials and commercialization, the world now has life-saving drugs that will help end the COVID-19 pandemic and many more life-threatening diseases in the future.