Healthy Skepticism Library item: 12814

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: report

PricewaterhouseCoopers
Pharma 2020: The vision - Which path will you take?
London: PricewaterhouseCoopers 2007 Jun
http://www.pwc.com/gx/eng/about/ind/pharma/pharma2020final.pdf

Abstract:

Table of contents

Introduction 1
A growth market 2
Emerging opportunities 3
Compound crisis 5
External barriers to innovation 8
Mixed signals 9
The bill for every ill 10
Washington blues 12
Blurring healthcare boundaries 14
Pay-for-performance 16
Medicines for different markets 18
Healthy habits and fab jabs 19
Sticking to the rules 21
What’s in a name? 24
The need for a dynamic new approach 27
Access to basic research 28
Pharmaceutical research 29
Pharmaceutical development 31
Regulation 33
The supply chain 36
Sales and marketing 38
Conclusion 40
Acknowledgements 42
References 43

Introduction
Demand for effective medicines is rising, as the population ages, new medical needs emerge and the
disease burden of the developing world increasingly resembles that of the developed world. The E7
countries – Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia and Turkey – are also becoming much
more prosperous, with real gross domestic product (GDP) projected to triple over the next 13 years. By 2020, the E7 could account for as much as one-fifth of global sales.

Yet the biopharmaceutical sector (Pharma) will find it hard to capitalise on these opportunities unless it can change the way in which it functions. Its core problem is lack of productivity in the lab. Several external factors have arguably exacerbated the industry’s difficulties, but the inescapable truth is that it now spends far more on research and development (R&D) and produces far fewer new molecules than it did 20 years ago. The shortage of good medicines in the pipeline underlies many of the other challenges Pharma faces, including its increasing expenditure on sales and marketing, deteriorating financial performance and damaged reputation.

At the start of the decade, many people thought that science would come to the industry’s rescue and
that molecular genetics would reveal numerous new biological targets, but the human genome has proved even more complex than anyone first envisaged. It is no longer the speed at which scientific knowledge is advancing so much as it is the healthcare agenda that is dictating how Pharma evolves.

The first part of our report highlights a number of issues that will have a major bearing on the industry over the next 13 years. The second part covers the changes we believe will best help pharmaceutical companies: – operate in this new milieu – realise the potential the future holds; and – enhance the value they provide shareholders and society alike…