Archive for the ‘Pharmaceutical Industry’ Category
From Science 2.0 to Pharma 3.0: my interview (Market Intelligence Hub)
“We recently caught up with Hervé Basset, specialist librarian in the pharmaceutical industry and owner of the blog “Science Intelligence“, to talk about the inspiration behind his recent book entitled “From Science 2.0 to Pharma 3.0″, published by Chandos Publishing and available on Amazon.“
Read the full article on
http://digimind.com/blog/experts/pharma-3-0/
Pharma 3.0: “a monumental shift is happening” (E&Y)
“A monumental shift is happening that will impact the future of healthcare, according to an Ernst & Young report, which outlines a new approach to healthcare delivery, leading to the reinvention of commercial models within the pharmaceutical industry. (…)
The report, Progressions – The third place: Healthcare everywhere examines how several forces, including patent cliffs; reduced R&D productivity, pricing pressures, globalization and demographics have made the industry’s long-standing blockbuster business model increasingly outdated. These factors fueled a transition known as the move from Pharma 1.0, a vertically integrated blockbuster model to Pharma 2.0, which is the current model based on a more diversified market portfolios and a broader focus on bottom-line returns, not just top-line growth. The move to Pharma 3.0 won’t be automatic. (…)
“What we’re talking about at a very high level is a move to new healthcare system that is based on value and not volume,” (…)
Signs exist indicating that pharma companies are moving customer centricity (…)
Pharma 3.0 is also significant because it involves the transition from blockbuster drugs to more personalized medicine for smaller populations…
Read the full article:
Burns, Mia. Pharma moving toward more customer-centric models. MedAdNews-Pharmalive, online on February, 5th 2013. Available from:
http://blog.medadnews.com/index.php/2013/02/05/pharma-moving-toward-more-customer-centric-models/
For Pharma 3.0 models, read also:
From Science 2.0 to Pharma 3.0
Available at Chandos:
http://www.woodheadpublishing.com/en/book.aspx?bookID=2767&ChandosTitle=1
After Big Pharma, welcome to Open Pharma
It seems that Open Pharma is really gaining momentum in the industry, even with Big Pharma. Every week sees news showing Open innovation initiatives…
“Janssen Research & Development, LLC (Janssen R&D) today announced the establishment of a global cross-pharmaceutical Investigator Databank designed to improve efficiencies of industry-sponsored clinical trials. Merck and Eli Lilly and Company are the first two companies to join Janssen in this effort. The new Investigator Databank, established as part of this novel industry collaboration, will serve as a one-stop repository where key information about clinical trial sites, such as infrastructure and Good Clinical Practice (GCP) training records, is housed. This will allow participating pharmaceutical companies to reduce time-consuming and sometimes redundant administrative work involved in identifying appropriate clinical trial sites. ”
Janssen Research & Development Announces Establishment of Global Cross-Pharmaceutical Clinical Trial Investigator Databank. Drugs.com, 15 November 2012. Available from:
http://www.drugs.com/news/janssen-research-amp-development-announces-establishment-global-cross-pharmaceutical-clinical-trial-41551.html
Pharma companies: not seen as the most innovative (but don’t compare apples to medicines!!)
A fair analysis by PhRMA of this recurrent report on Innovation by Booz & Company…
Booz surveyed trends in R&D spending and innovation strategies, looking at whether a company’s fluctuating investments had any long term effects on their brand’s innovation standards.
From the report:
“There is no long-term correlation between the amount of money a company spends on its innovation efforts and its overall financial performance. Instead, what matters is how companies use that money and other resources, as well as the quality of their talent, processes, and decision making.”
In Booz’s report, the list the top 20 spenders on innovation; eight of them are biopharmaceutical companies:
- N°2, Novartis, $9,6 billions
- N°3, Roche
- N°4, Pfizer
- N°7, Merck
- N°12, J&J
- N°13, Sanofi
- N°16, GSK
- N°20: AstraZeneca
That pharmaceutical companies’ investments represent some of the highest R&D spending but still aren’t viewed as highly innovative by other industries…
Part of the discrepancy lies in a public perception problem. Industries that generate a constant stream of new products are hard to compare to pharmaceutical companies who make incremental progress researching a new medicine over the course of several years. A billion dollars invested into gadget technology can create multiple new products; the same amount spent on molecular biology means you might hopefully understand Alzheimer’s disease only slightly better than you did before.
Look through Booz’s report – it’s a worthwhile read – but remember that it’s tough to compare Apples to medicines.
And someone to comment:
“what constitutes innovation? incremental change larger screen on iphone or innovative healthcare?“
Hollon, Kaelan. New Report Ranks World’s Most Innovative Companies. PhRMA, 13/11/12, Available from:
http://catalyst.phrma.org/new-report-ranks-worlds-most-innovative-companies/
Innovation by Big Pharma: same education, same conferences, … give a same model
Reported by David Bradley:
“A case study of six leading pharmaceutical companies – Amgen, Elan, Lundbeck, Merck, UCB and Wyeth – by Annabeth Aagaard of the University of Southern Denmark points to how the industry might adapt to ongoing pressures from rising R&D costs, depreciating patent value and public authority desire to cut healthcare costs.
These challenges have increased the focus on shortening development times and the efficiency of Front-End of Innovation (FEI),…
Aagaard found that the six companies employ very similar approaches to idea management in FEI, which might suggest that innovation would be stifled and the competitive edge lost…
A scientists says, “You have to remember, that we (i.e., the pharmaceutical scientists) all go to the same conferences, are more or less educated in the same places and are moving to and between the same companies, so we share a number of similarities and probably think very much alike when it comes to innovation and how to develop a new drug.”
Read the full article at:
Bradley, David. Skunk pharma. ScienceBase, November 8, 2012. Available from:
Social Health Activists distrust Big Pharma
According a recent study, patient communities have a negative view of social efforts by the pharma industry:
“The increasingly important use of social media by the pharmaceutical industry is not only controversial, but hard to gauge. Although anxious about regulatory scrutiny, drugmakers are trying to reach more patients all the time. But the results are, not surprisingly, spotty. A recent survey found that 47 percent of so-called health activists – people who regularly participate in online health communities – have a negative view of pharma. (…)
We have “heard a consistent refrain: communities want companies to contribute critical information – and to help correct misinformation – in social media. (…)
The article says also that pharma companies remain skepticals about the real social media impact:
- More than 80 percent of 61 drug and device makers, healthcare agencies, technology companies and so-called thoughts leaders believe the lack of guidance from the agency has limited the ability to attempt innovative programs in social media. In fact, almost half of respondents say the legal and regulatory risks of using social medica (dixit) outweigh the benefits of participation
- The median budget allocation to digital, out of the total marketing budget, this year is 15 percent, with a 20 percent median expected in 2013. The biggest budget increase is expected for content for tablets and smartphones, and social media initiatives for consumers
- drug and device makers are more optimistic about mobile than social media
Silverman, Ed. Which Social Media groups distrust Pharma? Pharmalot, 6th of November 2012. Available from:
http://www.pharmalot.com/2012/11/which-social-media-groups-distrust-pharma/
To read: Open Innovation, Social network and advances in Drug discovery
Extract of a recent good review:
“Social networking is beginning to make an impact on the drug discovery process. A convergence of different commercial and publicly accessible chemical informatics, databases and social networking tools is positioned to change the way that scientific and medical collaborations are initiated, maintained and expanded, particularly in the realm of complex, rare and orphan diseases . A community-based platform that combines traditional drug discovery informatics with Web 2.0 platforms and strong privacy is believed to be the key to facilitate richer and instantaneous collaborations involving health care professionals with the same interests. This way data from differential diagnosis, experiments and new drugs being tested are archived, mined and then selectively shared between colleagues in the Internet with standardized formats.
New drugs are subject to exhaustive crucial scrutiny, yet there has never been a corresponding effort to collect reports of drugs delivering unexpected benefits. If open innovation can lead to the creation of the world’s most complete encyclopedia such as Wikipedia, that same approach could be used to capture the exceptional untapped value associated with existing drugs, and to power the discovery of important new medicines. In the Facebook and Google era, there might be a better, more efficient and systematic way of harnessing this communal wisdom for drug discovery. (…)
In light of these initiatives, large pharmaceutical organizations are in the process of transitioning from a fully integrated pharmaceutical company to fully integrated pharmaceutical networks with a social networking component connecting members with similar interests as well as project tracking and planning.
Academic and private sectors need user-friendly and efficient tools for information exchange and to share data points from patients. Pharmaceutical companies have interdepartmental databases of patients and samples for research, clinical trials and for patient follow-up, but there is no communication between these databases, even within databases housed in the same company [Social Media in Science and Medicine: http://www.laboratory-journal.com/science/information-technology-it/social-media-science-and-medicine%5D. To date, there are no social networks in the market that offers useful solutions for science and medicine in the clinical genetics field [Social Media in Science and Medicine: http://www.laboratory-journal.com/science/information-technology-it/social-media-science-and-medicine%5D. It is paramount for physicians to have reliable tools that will facilitate diagnosis and identify better treatments for diseases. (…)
As in the medical field, there is an increasing need for solutions in the scientific field for networking and communication between professionals with common interests. ResearchGate, Academia.edu and Mendeley are already providing some tools to achieve this goal but more specialized open-source media tools are needed in science and medicine. Despite existing competition in science, the best way for science to have a major impact in society and change the way we approach diseases is through collaboration and networking. In the end, the outcome will be the development of better drugs and faster translation of basic science to the patient’s bedside”.
Fabricio F. Costa. Social networks, web-based tools and diseases: implications for biomedical research. Drug Discovery Today, Available online 23 October 2012
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.drudis.2012.10.006
“Beware of fake online pharmacies” FDA’s campaign
A national campaign aimed at making Americans more aware of the prevalence of fake online pharmacies has been launched by the FDA.
The FDA (Food and Drug Administration) warned that fraudulent online pharmacies pose a danger to patient health. The Agency says it aims to help consumers make safe purchases.
American consumers find online pharmacies attractive mainly because many are so cheap compared to retail outlets in the USA. Purchasers can sometimes save from 50% to 80% when buying from foreign websites.
Source:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/250866.php
The FDA page:
Only 30% of Top 100 Pharma and Biotech have Apps…
According this very good study by Mike Ratclife
- To date, only 30%, or 30 companies out of the 100 surveyed have Apps in the Apple Apps Store
- The 30 companies with Apps had launched 101 Apps.
- Nearly two thirds have only launched one or two Apps; The largest number of Apps sponsored by any one single company is nine – Merck and Sanofi.
- All are free whether for the iPhone or iPad. The iPhone is the most popular platform accounting for 75% of all Apps, 50% are on the iPad and 25% are on both platforms.
- These Apps are targeted at either consumers (patients), or professionals (providers). Nearly two thirds are aimed at consumers, while one third at professionals.
Read the full study at:
Ratcliffe, Mike. Pharma & Biotech tap into Mobile Apps. CI Strategy, 21 September 2012, Available from:
http://www.cistrategy.com/2012/09/21/pharma-biotech-tap-into-mobile-apps/
