Throughout the year we have published the views of company executives, government regulators, industry analysts and scientists on a variety of topics and, in our popular annual feature, we include a selection of these that paints a picture of the significant events that shaped 2019. The major talking point was on the capital markets front where investors turned their backs on the biopharmaceutical sector for most of the year returned big time in the final quarter.

A quick look back at top stories.

Wells Fargo Securities LLC recently published The MedTech Manual – 2020 Outlook, in which it says the medical device sector “will continue to be a port in the storm because the political focus will remain on drug pricing and increasing access to [health care].” Overall, the industry has performed quite well in comparison with other health care sectors during 2019. The financial firm’s senior analyst Larry Biegelsen and colleagues wrote that they expect the medical device sector to continue moving in a positive direction despite Medicare for All (MFA) rhetoric and an upcoming presidential election.

The warning bells about the global threat of the rise of antimicrobial-resistant (AMR) infections and dearth of new antibiotics seem to have been ringing for several years now. However, the prospects of companies developing new antibiotics, buoyed by regulatory incentives and grant funding, should on the face of it be an attractive proposition for investors.

Machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) are already being actively used in drug discovery to evaluate potential binding of small-molecule drugs to proteins, but there's potential for the technologies to be used on the development side as well, especially in hard-to-treat diseases such as Alzheimer's disease.