Fixing Pharma ' s Broken Commercial Model

Pharma is fast emerging from a golden era of high profit margins and a largely unblemished reputation that saw the industry ride the crest of a lucrative wave for many years.In recent years, the landscape has changed as leaner health budgets prompt payers to demand lower prices and greater value, empowered patients demand better care, and advances in medicines result in ageing populations with more complex and chronic diseases.Add to that tighter regulations around industry access to physicians, increased competition, a rise in generic medicines and the behaviour of a small number of companies causing scandals that have seen pharma ’s reputation plummet.All of this has left industry ’s once highly successful commercial model dead in the water, prompting pharma to rethink.“We have turned death sentences into chronic diseases,” says Peter Guenter, EVP, Diabetes and Cardiovascular at Sanofi, citing HIV, Type 1 diabetes and some forms of cancer. Vaccines have eradicated smallpox, child mortality has dropped dramatically thanks to infant vaccination, countless lifelo ng disabilities, such as paralysis from polio, have been prevented. It has been a fantastic journey.”However, what made pharma successful in the past will not necessarily make it successful in the future, he says. “The transactional model of research – approval – manufacture – physician marketing – prescription saved lives and created jobs. The pharmaceutical industry was one of the most admired in...
Source: EyeForPharma - Category: Pharmaceuticals Authors: Source Type: news