Biopharma money raised to-date and by month in 2022, including public, private and other financings.

While biopharma M&As fail to keep up with prior years, the dealmaking environment remains strong, as deal values continue to grow. Through early August of this year, biopharma companies have completed 955 deals, including licensings, joint ventures and collaborations, valued at $114.5 billion, which is 7% more than last year ($107 billion) and 2% more than 2020 ($112.2 billion).

The amount of money raised by biopharma companies so far this year is down by 59% in comparison with last year, and there are 42% fewer transactions.

A rash of recent announcements in the diabetes market speak to the brisk pace of developments and keen competition in the field. Dexcom Inc. reported good news in the U.K. and Europe, offset by delays in the U.S., while Insulet Corp. gave investors assurance that it was moving full speed ahead in the release of its Omnipod artificial pancreas system. On the pharma side, Arecor Therapeutics plc signed a contingent agreement to acquire Tetris Pharma Ltd. and commercialize Ogluo in the U.K., E.U. and other countries.

As omicron subvariants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus take hold, global cases began to rise in the past month, just as the U.S. authorized its fourth COVID-19 vaccine and developers continue their work on a fall booster targeting BA.4 and BA.5. Worldwide deaths have remained lower than each of the last two pandemic years, signaling that the worst is over. It is clear, however, that as current treatments lose their effectiveness and the virus continues to evolve, efforts to contain the virus will be ongoing.

Keeping innovation growing at a fast clip while retaining new global supply chain capacity built up during the pandemic were the main topics of discussion at the Bio Asia-Taiwan conference July 27 in Taipei. With the theme of the conference, “Connecting the Asia Value Chain,” Taiwan Vice President Ching-Te Lai said the pandemic has demonstrated Taiwan’s resilience as well as the strength of the global biopharma industry.

The volume of clinical data in 2022 is down by 16.9% from last year. Pandemic efforts are still decreasing while three therapeutic areas dominate the news. Through the last week of July, there have been a total of 1,997 clinical entries, compared with 2,402 by this point in 2021.