2023: THE YEAR IN MEDICINE

Drugs for obesity, Alzheimer's, and infectious diseases herald a new era of innovation in the pharma business

- Alice Park

IT'S BEEN A WHILE SINCE THE pharmaceutical industry last saw a year like 2023, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a slew of groundbreaking and life-changing medications that represent a surge in innovation-and a potential boon to the drugmakers' bottom lines.

Eisai and Biogen kicked off the year with the approval of lecanemab (Leqembi) for Alzheimer's disease, which is the second medication designed to treat the root causes of the memory-robbing condition, but appears to be the most effective. GSK and Pfizer dropped the first-ever vaccines for RSV in adults, giving older and pregnant people a way to protect themselves and, in the case of expectant mothers, their newborns as well-from a potentially deadly respiratory disease. Biogen and Sage Therapeutics received approval for a first-ever oral treatment for postpartum depression, zuranolone (Zurzuvae), and the FDA also allowed biotech companies Intellia Therapeutics and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals to start late-stage testing of the first gene-editing treatment, using CRISPR technology, inside patients.