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Novo Nordisk A/S, a global producer of diabetes products, reported little change in its sales and a 1% increase in operating profit in 2017 at respectively DKK 112 billion (€15.05 billion) and DKK 49 billion.

ViiV Healthcare Ltd, the specialist HIV company majority-owned by GlaxoSmithKline Plc, has filed a patent infringement suit against Gilead Sciences Inc over bictegravir, an integrase inhibitor that is part of a combination therapy approved in the US on 7 February.

An experimental cancer therapy that combines the Roche checkpoint antibody Tecentriq (atezolizumab) and Avastin (bevacizumab) met its co-primary endpoint of progression-free survival in a Phase 3 trial of patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma.

Sanofi SA is forecasting a rise in adjusted earnings per share in 2018 of between 2% and 5% as new products gradually overtake the decline in sales of its core diabetes franchise.

Sales increased across GlaxoSmithKline’s three business groups in 2017, but the company expressed caution for the year ahead owing to uncertainty about the timing of the market entry of a generic competitor for its respiratory medicine Advair.

After Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway Inc and JP Morgan Chase & Co announced on 30 January that they will take steps to reduce the rising cost of US health insurance, shares of health insurance companies and pharmacies declined.

AstraZeneca Plc delivered a 4% increase in product sales in the fourth quarter of 2017, pointing towards a return to growth. This comes nearly four years after it fought off a hostile takeover bid, and started to rebuild its portfolio to offset the expiry of patents on its core products.

The rise in clinical trials for prospective gene therapies has generated new business for Biotec Pharmacon ASA, a Norwegian company with a portfolio of research products derived from the natural environment.

Legacy drugs accounted for half of pharmaceutical sales at Roche in 2017, but this was partially offset by strong growth for a group of recently launched products including new medicines for multiple sclerosis, haemophilia A and cancer.

A decades’ long discussion in the EU about how to establish common rules for assessing the value of new medicines has come to a conclusion with a proposal from the European Commission on 31 January to regulate health technology assessment (HTA).