The Future of the Pharmaseutical Industry 2020

At the Rotterdam School of Management MBA students Luis Angel Arguello, Marianne de Backe, Erwin van Rijssen and Gerben Wierda have has part of their assignment for the course New Global Business Environment looked at the future of the pharmaceutical industry. To download their full report in PDF please click here.

Introduction

The pharmaceutical industry is suffering from a lack of genuine innovation and is expecting what they call “A Perfect Storm”. Of the 57 marketed blockbuster drugs in 2002, more than 30 are expected to lose patent protection between 2003 and 2008. R&D cost will continue to rise. Sales growth is decreasing. There is an increased competition from generic (patent-free) drugs.

The regulatory environment is also changing. Increased revenues are met by legislation and/or insurance firm strategies trying to limit the rise of health care cost (e.g. by direct pricing controls or stimulus on the use of generic drugs). Clinical trials become more and more expensive because of government regulation.

The financial sector still demands a double-digit revenue growth from the Pharma industry with healthy profits.

Lifestyle drugs like may take over the role of the big cash cows. The pressure on the regulators to tolerate "off-label" use of substances to offset the huge research investments and shrinking returns from genuine lifesaving products will certainly grow. What has begun with Viagra is now continuing with substances like Modafinil (developed for narcoleptics, keeps healthy people awake for days without significant side effects) and new cognitive and memory enhancing products that are about to hit the market.

Scenarios

Asian giant awakens

Asia not only became a big new market for Pharmaceutical products it also effectively invested in R&D and production of medicines and as such emerged as a new competitive force in the Pharmaceutical industry.
Western countries, which lacked pre-established contacts in the region, failed to fully pick the fruits of the growing Asian Pharma and Biotech boom. Helped by support of a Republican government, big Pharma won law suit battles from the generics companies and were as a consequence assured the previously granted long-life (25 yrs) patent protection on their drugs. Pricing pressure was similarly restricted. This gave a much needed temporarily relief to the existing Pharma companies which needed to position themselves for the new Asian markets and competitors.

Wind of change

By 2007, scientists were making amazing strides forward in the discovery of new technologies. Investors regained trust in Biotech and innovative technologies. The world economy was booming. Growth in Asia, however, stagnated as bad investment policies from the past surfaced.

Advances in bio- and Pharmaceutical technologies drastically changed the Pharmaceutical industry: from 2009 onwards, a patient’s genome could be scanned in one single day allowing to pick up potential genetic disorders related to observed diseases traits early; Patients gradually became used to carrying around an electronic card with their genomic data (allowing physicians and hospitals to quickly assess and follow-up on potential disease risks).

The world did not experience any major new infectious disease threat and was generally prosperous. The health care market, although not a top priority for the governments (no serious new threats), benefited from the overall growth in economy and the higher demands worldwide due to new treatments that were discovered.

A plagued world

A major worldwide health care disaster due to the spread of a novel infectious disease caused massive casualties. It was unclear if the infectious bug was a spontaneous mutation in nature or introduced in the context of a major biological terrorist attack in the US and Japan. Despite the stagnant economy, enormous amounts of money needed to be spent on the discovery and development (R&D) on ways to combat these diseases; this, in turn, sustained the stagnation.

Despite a Republican US government in place during most legislations between 2004 and 2020, under global pressure and WHO influence, the US patent life of drugs was decreased to incentivize the industry for effective drugs to come to market faster.

While prospect for profits were low, new entrants were numerous as capital injections from venture capitalists and government became available. Disease containment was the No. 1 worldwide focus, only industries that could benefit from this situation thrived.

Unexpected success

The world experienced a strong worldwide economic growth with a concurrent growth in the Pharmaceuticals market and R&D spending. By 2010 it became clear that Asia was going to assume one of the leading roles in the world. Yet, despite the huge R&D investments in the Western world as well as in Asia, the problem of lack of fundamental innovation in the Pharmaceutical industry remained.

New companies entered the Pharmaceutical scene (both in the Western world and in Asia) as risk capital became readily available from venture capitalists, R&D spending in existing and new Pharma/Biotech companies continued to increase, without new technologies as a result.

Some of the top Pharma blockbusters lost patent protection by 2008 allowing the generics producers to take some of the market, however, new blockbusters had appeared to alleviate the problems. Regulatory demands on clinical trials continued to increase, leading to increased costs.

To download the full report in PDF please click here.