A strong crop of early PDUFA dates and a sense that FDA is more navigable have given money managers in the U.S. and Europe a positive outlook for 2013, which they hope will be another year with a high number of approvals.

That will make the year more about launches than data, but even so, optimism remains. Indeed, the strength of the upcoming products means for the first time since 2010, investors no longer view biotech launches as automatic shorts.