The global hearing therapeutic pipeline: 2021

Hearing loss is a serious condition affecting more than 1.5 billion people globally. Many affected people benefit from the use of devices, such as hearing aids, but these do not restore natural hearing, and many users still struggle to follow speech in the presence of background noise. Consequently, there is rapid growth in work to discover therapeutics to address this need. Our analysis of the therapeutic pipeline for inner ear and central processing disorders identified 23 assets in clinical trials and 56 in preclinical development, of which 25% have entered the pipeline in the past three years. The innovative potential of this pipeline is encouraging, but there are translational hurdles to be overcome. We highlight challenges for the pipeline and comment on opportunities to support and strengthen it.