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Counterfeit Drugs, One Click AwayIf it looks too good to be true.... The price is unbeatable, the Web site proudly displays an accreditation seal of approval, medicines are advertised as "generics" of the branded versions (implying bioequivalence with respect to safety and efficacy), and patients never have to leave their homes. Marcia Bergeron, a 57-year-old Canadian resident likely had these things in mind when she purchased antianxiety and sedative medication from an online pharmacy. The pills she received from the Web site, however, caused hair loss and vision problems, and ultimately resulted in her death. The coroner's toxicology report showed that the pills she purchased online were laced with traces of dangerous metals, including uranium, strontium, selenium, aluminum, and arsenic. Bergeron, like many others around the world, was a victim of the counterfeit-medicine business, an industry that the US-based Center for Medicine in the Public Interest (CMPI) predicts will reach $75 billion in sales globally by 2010.
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Creating Clinical Portals: A Model for SuccessClinical trials are complex, time consuming, and data intensive. Yet pharma remains one of the few industries that is still largely paper driven.
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Health Economics: Data MiningIt's certainly not headline news that these are tough days for the pharmaceutical industry. More than $60 billion in revenue from blockbuster drugs will evaporate as these products go generic over the next five years, while the productivity of clinical development has hit a particularly rough patch. Even in the companies with relatively strong pipelines, many of the new treatments are biotech products acquired out of house. The expected authorization of biogenerics will squeeze profits only further.
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Salesforce Survey 2008Welcome to the new employer's market for reps. The Hay Group's annual survey reports how, as the primary sales force contracts, so too does its pay.
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Professional Promotion Through Patient UnderstandingThough it may sound paradoxical, the most effective deployment of a patient-feedback program is within a pharmaceutical brand's professional promotions
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A New Era of Ethical LeadershipLisa LeCointe-Cephas, SVP, chief ethics and compliance officer and office of general counsel, human health, Merck, uses her unique style of leadership—stop, drop, and roll—while elevating voices that need to be heard.
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Shape Up! With 7 Steps to Company FitnessCompanies, like individuals, must stay in shape, and both must search-in an environment of high demands on time and resources-for the right tools to achieve and maintain fitness. The pharma industry's current challenges suggest that the need for fitness may be greater than ever:
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Good TailoringPersonalized health communication enables marketers to vary the messages they deliver, and it increases their ability to motivate different patients to act
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Networked PharmaDuring the next ten years, big pharma companies will need to launch two products a year to generate 5 percent annual growth, five products a year to hit 10 percent growth, and nine products a year to meet a 15 percent annual growth target. Clearly, the stakes are high.
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The Right StaffConsider the following real-world scenario: Feb. 28-Apr. 14, 2000. Third-party auditors warn Schering-Plough (SP) of problems with product quality, including lack of quality control (QC) and high staff turnover. Dec. 20, 2000. SP's stock price reaches a high of $60 per share. Jan. 19, 2001. FDA completes an in-depth inspection of SP production facilities, identifying significant, repeated, and widespread QC violations dating to 1998. Several production lines are shut down and the Clarinex (desloratidine) launch is delayed.
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Pharma and Biotech Markets: Mostly Sunny, But An Uncertain ForecastPharm Exec's Editorial Advisory Board member, Peter Young, cover a summary of the strategic issues facing the biopharma industry, but goes on to tell the story of what happened last year and this first quarter in terms of the stock market, M&A and financing (including IPOs) activity, where it is headed, and the implications for senior management.
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Back Page: Where are the Women?Despite efforts to increase diversity, the stark reality is that today's leading pharmaceutical companies are still run by men.
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Opinion: Trigger PointsFor several decades, conventional wisdom in the pharmaceutical industry has held that a large sales force is the key to commercial success. However, in recent years, a number of warning signs have emerged about the effectiveness and long-term viability of this expensive asset. While few are saying it publicly, a number of pharma executives are now exploring the possibility that it could be only a matter of time before the industry's dependence on personal selling comes to an end.
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Get a Grip on the Supply ChainThe Sarbanes-Oxley Act-or SOX, as it is dubbed (not always so affectionately)-requires companies to provide greater control and quality assurance across a vast spectrum of business processes. In practice, SOX plays out differently industry by industry and even company by company. But for pharma, one of the most pressing consequences is the need to improve the accuracy of revenue recognition.
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Direct to Consumer: One Size Fits YouPharma companies have been blasting out electronic newsletters to consumers since the advent of new media. But far too often, the content is vague and redundant, and instead of striking a responsive chord with potential readers, e-mail campaigns are more likely to prompt a strike of the delete key.
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Three Challenges to CRO SuccessThe last few years have seen tremendous consolidation in both the pharmaceutical and contract research industries. The impact among pharma companies has created a heightened demand for productivity. Consequently, contract research organizations (CROs) have struggled to find their footing in a business where the number of customers has shrunk and the demand for speed and cost-effectiveness has risen. Delivering service excellence when customers' names and addresses are changing regularly is a challenge, resulting in disrupted continuity, broken lines of communication, and policies and relationships thrown into disarray.
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The Growing Pediatrics MarketPediatric drugs require investments in formulation, but the market opportunity is worth the cost.
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Critical Mass for Critical Path?Innovation in science is no quick trick, and neither is collaboration. Back in March 2004, FDA sounded a now-famous alarm: Despite the drug industry's 250 percent jump in spending on R&D, drug-development productivity had plunged by 50 percent over the previous decade. The report, which became known as the Critical Path Initiative (CPI), last year yielded an industry-wide call to arms regarding 76 action items (aka, the "Opportunities List") in six key areas: biomarker development, the streamlining of trials, the harnessing of informatics, improving drug manufacturing, public health initiatives against infections and bioterrorism, and special programs for adolescents, children, and other at-risk populations.
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Combating CounterfeitsAfter last year's anthrax scare, people desperately began stockpiling Cipro (ciprofloxacin) and other products to prepare for bioterrorism attacks. Not wanting to bother with a visit to their doctor and not willing to pay the product's high retail price of several dollars a pill, they began ordering Cipro-or what they believed to be Cipro-online, from dozens of websites offering it at discounted rates. The problem is, there is no guarantee they were getting the real thing.
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Reach for the RadioIn August, eMarketer reported that Internet ad sales had officially displaced radio ad sales, nabbing the slot of fourth-largest ad medium. That was a huge blow to radio, which receives a sizable chunk of ad dollars from the pharma industry. Now pharma marketers have a new option-ReachMD, a 24-hour satellite radio station that plays content targeted at doctors.
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Sales Management: Get CommittedPharma companies today are focused on driving prescriptions. But just because physicians are prescribing a brand doesn't mean that they are committed to it. Who's to say a doctor won't jump ship the moment a flashier new drug comes on the scene?
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Pharma Signs Up to the FutureBy using digital signatures to eliminate paper from signature approval processes, pharmaceutical companies are achieving automated processes that are efficient and cost-effective without compromising security or compliance.
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The New Building Blocks for BlockbustersSingle drugs for single indications are hard to find. Here's how to get around that.
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Critical Mass for Critical Path?Innovation in science is no quick trick, and neither is collaboration. Back in March 2004, FDA sounded a now-famous alarm: Despite the drug industry's 250 percent jump in spending on R&D, drug-development productivity had plunged by 50 percent over the previous decade. The report, which became known as the Critical Path Initiative (CPI), last year yielded an industry-wide call to arms regarding 76 action items (aka, the "Opportunities List") in six key areas: biomarker development, the streamlining of trials, the harnessing of informatics, improving drug manufacturing, public health initiatives against infections and bioterrorism, and special programs for adolescents, children, and other at-risk populations.
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C-Suite Personality: Fit for Future?Exploring new character benchmarks for today’s pharma executives, and whether they have the transformational traits to lead through change.
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PhRMA Announces Billy Tauzin's SuccessorJohn Castellani received the nod from PhRMA on Tuesday to take over the role of president and CEO in September.
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Forecast 2007: Connecting the DotsPharma faces a wide array of pressing issues-almost too many to think about comfortably-from drug safety and the industry's image to intellectual property in emerging markets and the overall usefulness of marketing. To remain effectively focused on strategy, industry executives must find relations between all the individual issues and group them into larger themes. Pragmatically, we all know this is essential.
