We are pleased to provide you with the third annual installment of our Life Sciences and Health Care Horizons guide. For each of these guides, we have asked our industry thought leaders throughout the world to write about trends and compelling legal issues within industry and within their particular region that are both of interest to them and that they believe will impact our clients in the near future.

Many members of our team chose to highlight the emergence of digital technologies and the convergence of those technologies with patient care, and with more traditional pharmaceutical, biological products, and medical devices. These articles have been provided by our colleagues in Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the United States, and reflect global trends and forces for the future in areas of cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and monitoring and drug dosing optimization, among others.

We also highlight concerns over the increasing costs of pharmaceutical products, and the attempts by governments to lower those costs, while still encouraging innovation. Maybe contrary to conventional opinion, increasing drug costs are not a problem exclusive to the United States. Our Tokyo-based partner, Frederick Ch’en, notes that the high-cost of biologics is a problem that the Japanese government is trying to address.

Now that Brexit has become a reality, our London-based partner, Jane Summerfield, foreshadows the challenges that life sciences companies will need to address when the UK’s split from the EU is finalized by the end of 2020.

In a first article of its kind for Hogan Lovells, London-based senior scientist, Dr. Marion Palmer, highlights some potential impacts of climate change on the Life Sciences and Health Care industry. Her thought provoking essay scratches the surface of unfortunate new health challenges the industry is likely to face as a result of increasing global temperatures.

We hope you find our view of the horizon for life sciences and health care intriguing as you think about your businesses for 2020 and beyond.

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