China continues to dominate the latest list of global billionaires and top execs from domestic pharma firms Hengrui and Hansoh ranked among the wealthiest overall in the country, along with the founder of vaccine maker Zhifei Bio. A number of top Chinese biopharma business executives also featured in the global top 100 billionaires list.

Scrip spotlights the action around five key big pharma products in India. We track the gains made by Rybelsus and Keytruda, the wave of Januvia and Ibrance generics and on-market and court action for blockbuster Entresto.

Benoit Opsomer, vice-president and head of bioprocessing, Asia Pacific, Merck Life Science, explains how recent targeted CDMO buyouts put the German group in pole position with services across the mRNA value chain, even as it supports global players such as BioNTech. Striking multi-country expansion of manufacturing footprint, including in China, is also underway amid rising demand for biopharma single-use assemblies.

Codagenix hopes a 2023 data readout from its intranasal RSV vaccine will be an inflection point, even as GSK and Pfizer look to establish a lead in the segment. Meanwhile, a second cancer candidate has been added to Codagenix's preclinical pipeline and data for its COVID-19 vaccine and TNBC oncolytic virus are expected next year, CEO Robert Coleman tells Scrip.