AstraZeneca: An Embarrassment Of Riches

2017 was a busy year for AstraZeneca. With 19 major new drug approvals in the US, Europe and Japan, many are looking to the company ’s rise in R&D productivity described by Mene Pangalos, head of its Innovative Medicines and Early Development unit,in a recent Reuters article as “less people, less sites and less money”.With so many launches, it was also a very busy year for Medical Affairs, says Mark Mallon, EVP, Global Product and Portfolio Strategy, Global Medical Affairs and Global Corporate Affairs.“2017 was unprecedented – one of the best company performances in the industry – but, with so many launches occurring at the same time, we had  to find ways to appropriately support them, to make sure that physicians got the right information on how best to use our products. With so much str ength in our pipeline, resource prioritization is a big part of what we’re doing right now,” he says.As with many companies, Medical Affairs at AZ has changed beyond recognition in recent years.“If you look back a few years, Medical had two parts. There were global medical affairs teams that worked on phase IV studies and helped runglobal symposia or worked with opinion leaders, but it was a pretty narrow scope compared to today. Then, in the markets, you had smaller, local medical affairs groups that primarily provided education and answered questions from local opinion leaders. There was not a great connection between the two groups, ” says Mallon.“Today, we’v...
Source: EyeForPharma - Category: Pharmaceuticals Authors: Source Type: news