I should have also given a sense of perspective. I'm not in a bio field, but it's not unusual for the whole review cycle to take 3-6 months. I've had some go over a year...

Writing a paper can also take months, especially if you have collaborators across different institutions and have folks either slow in writing their sections (>_>) or people that really like to do a lot of revisions.

It's not uncommon for the literature to be lagging a year or two behind what's happening within the lab.