How COVID-19 is Still Changing the Biopharma Industry, Now and in the Future

The development of COVID-19 vaccines, which took only months from the initial gene sequencing to the time shots were in arms, was the biggest story of 2020 alongside the pandemic itself. It’s still one of the largest areas of interest for biopharma companies worldwide, according to just-released data from Informa Connect Life Sciences’ report, COVID-19 One Year On: Impacts on the Global Life Sciences Industry 2021.

The speed of the vaccine development and distribution surprised nearly everyone in the industry. The 379 respondents from around the world said they expected vaccine approval would take 14 months, with rollout four months afterward. More than half of the respondents in North America and Europe said the speed exceeded their expectations.

The Europeans, however, are a bit disgruntled. Some 17% said the rollout is behind expectations, compared to only 6% in North America. This is likely related to the EU contracting procedures that limited the supplies of vaccines earlier this year and the subsequent lower vaccination rates. Figures from Asia were not listed.

Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that the lowest percentage of companies developing vaccines are in Europe, where they declined from 26% in 2020 to 14% in 2021. Vaccine development enthusiasm in Europe may have been tempered by the manufacturing difficulties encountered by some leading vaccine manufacturers. In contrast, in Asia the percentage doubled to 21% as Sinovac vaccine efficacy began to be questioned. The 24% figure for the U.S. did not change. Vaccine rollout continues, as Israel and the U.S. recommend booster shots and others are queuing up for the first time.

In therapeutics, percentages held steady year-to-year, at 28% globally. In terms of diagnostics, Asia and Europe each showed an uptick of 6%, to 21% and 24% respectively. The U.S. companies developing COVID-19 therapeutics declined by 2%.

Repercussions are likely to reverberate long after the pandemic ends, in the form of improvements and enhanced efficiency among drug developers and regulators alike. The pandemic showed it was possible to work more efficiently without compromising safety. Therefore, some 65% said they expect to see accelerated regulatory approval, 57% expect more collaboration, 53% expect changes to clinical trials and 37% expect changes in funding. Only 6% expect no long-term changes because of the pandemic.

While many types of COVID-19 vaccines have been developed using a wide variety of delivery systems, the mRNA vaccines developed by Pfizer and Moderna were the first to become available and are among most effective against the wild-type strain of the virus and the emerging variants. That success, 88% of the respondents said, will result in mRNA delivery systems being used more frequently in other therapeutics.

The broader application of mRNA, nearly all said, will affect future product development and manufacturing. Breaking it down, 61% expect mRNA technology will help accelerate regulatory approval. More than 50% said it will affect manufacturing, drug delivery or risk-sharing models.

The supply chain will be affected, too, 47% predicted, while approximately 40% predicted that mRNA will affect public-private partnerships, collaborative business models, and chemistry, manufacturing and controls (CMC).

Globally, the industry is equally divided – 49% to 51% – between companies that are, or are not, developing COVID-19-related products, the survey reported.

Although the U.S. still has the most companies involved in developing COVID-19-related products, the percentage involved has waned slightly, from 49% to 46%, April to April. Meanwhile, the rest of the world has ramped up.

Asia has seen the largest increase, from 31% in 2020 to 53% this year. In Europe, the percentage grew from 38% in 2020 to 51% in 2021. This increase indicates how widespread the industry response to the pandemic has been and reflects the addition of companies to the fight, the report noted.

Even those companies not addressing COVID-19 have faced changes. The biggest involved their increasing use of digital technologies. Some 90% of companies adopted a more digital strategy. The use of digital technologies is particularly strong for companies with more than 500 employees.

That’s because during the pandemic, so many people worked from home. With 59% of biopharma employees (globally) still working from home – down from 68% in 2020 – reliance on alternative ways to meet and collaborate remains strong. In North America, 74% of employees – the highest in the world – worked from home full-time in 2020. One year later, that percentage has dropped to 65%, but is still the highest, ahead of Europe (57%) and Asia (41%). Overall, only 17% of employees are back in the office full-time despite most countries opening up.

Looking forward, 55% said they expect to work from home more often in the future. That trend, however, varies by type of employer. Those working for technology providers are the most likely to continue working from home at least occasionally (77%), while only 42% of those working for contract research, development, or manufacturing organizations expect to work from home.