This month we celebrate women from various factions of healthcare who are all striving to achieve better outcomes for patients in their vastly different roles, showcasing their careers, interests, achievements and thoughts on the future. Turn to page 17 to meet some of the brightest stars across pharma, communications and healthcare.

With patient outcomes also clearly centre stage, on page 30 Craig Adkins says now is the time to level up care for patients with irritable bowel disorder (IBD), a condition for which there is an urgent need for a national disease strategy and the application of a standard of care across the country, while on page 34, looking at 15 years of biosimilars in Europe, Rebecca Guntern highlights that the opportunity to leverage biosimilars ‘as an obvious and sustainable way to increase patient access to medicines has never been closer’.

Elsewhere, on p28 there’s an interesting analysis by CRA on whether disease rarity is valued in cost-effectiveness analyses by decision makers in England, and on page 36 Mike Ward details the drugs hitting the market in 2021 that are likely to hit blockbuster status within five years.

And finally, some news on our competitions - the 2021 PharmaTimes Marketer of the Year, Communications Awards and Clinical Researcher of the Year, the Americas, are all still open for entry, while the PharmaTimes Sales Awards are set to launch in May. For more information visit www. pharmatimes.com/competitions. Also, if you’re thinking of entering the 2021 Patient Partnership Index, entry to that closes on May 14 (www. patientpartnershipindex.co.uk/enter)