The Pharma 2.0 Trend For 2010
The end of 2009 is creeping closer and analysts are already looking towards 2010 and wondering what new challenges are in store for the pharma industry. After the turbulent year of 2009, some may be relieved to know that analyst firm Ovum, part of the Datamonitor Group, believes that dramatic changes are unlikely.
“Indeed, there will be changes in 2010 brought on by the US healthcare reform, the pending patent cliff and new regulations, but nothing as drastic as a stock market crash or the fall of the banking industry,” predicts Ovum’s report 2010 Trends to Watch: Pharmaceuticals Technology.
In fact, unless any major changes are brought about by new US or European regulatory guidance or the Obama administration, Ovum pretty much expects the industry to remain status quo for the majority of the year. The trend for slow growth will continue, and cutting costs and reducing time-to-market will remain a priority, particularly with the impending patent cliff in 2011.
Perhaps that’s not great news for those hoping the industry will enter an upturn; however, the report believes the industry is moving in the right direction just by acknowledging the challenges it faces and implementing new strategies to move forward. Hopefully the industry will start to see some of the effects of these strategies in late 2010, with the full effects being realized during the next 5 years.
One key trend for the upcoming year will be the industry’s continued march to the new business model Pharma 2.0, which Ovum describes as “leaner, globalised entity whose increased scale is achieved ‘virtually’ rather than through accretion”. Pharma 2.0 will involve increasing the sharing of collaboration and knowledge between siloed departments and global organisations, which will make IT solutions integral.
IT and technology solutions will also become crucial in other aspects of the pharma industry. The Ovum report explained that genomic technologies and bioinformatics will promote innovative R&D, while eHealth technologies will also come in handy for the increasing collaborations between life sciences companies and healthcare organisations. In particular, IT and technology will have a huge impact on personalised medicine, which Ovum believes may very well shape the future of the life sciences industry. The report said: “As the personalized medicine research areas develop, so must the IT solutions that enable the research, thus moving the industry a step closer to providing the public with more effective medicines.”
Very interesting post. The pharma industry may remain somewhat “status quo” for 2010, but it’s good to see that even with slow growth, that cutting costs and reducing time-to-market will remain a priority. I also agree that as this industry continues to grow, IT and technology solutions will also be crucial within the pharma industry.
In general, the findings outlined here are in line with what we’ve been seeing in the industry, especially the idea that in 2010 we’ll see more sharing and collaboration between siloed departments in global organizations. More than ever before we’re hearing from our customers that IT systems need to extend across the global enterprise, as companies grow their operations to more disparate locations around the world. M&A activities in the Pharma domain are a contributing factor to this as well. I think this globalization will continue to be an overall positive development for the industry, but if companies aren’t careful, it can also severely impact quality and compliance. That’s why in 2010 I also expect to see an uptick in the industry in issues regarding quality and compliance with differing global regulations, as well as increased sophistication in the ways that companies manage their disparate suppliers and implement global quality processes across the enterprise.
-Gabe Gurman, VP research & development, Sparta Systems
I can agree with your article and the basic premise that the industry will remain ’status quo.’ I see this as an opportunity for IT to step up and be the enabler of “process innovation.” I believe IT will provide the next steps for the industry to reach the Pharma 2.0 business model. This will be achieved by ‘integration’ of new SaaS applications between silos of information. IT service providers that can ‘connect’ these applications while cutting costs will be the norm for next year.
This article hits some key points as do the comments by Gabe Gurman regarding “leaner, globalised entity whose increased scale is achieved ‘virtually’ rather than through accretion”. I would like to qualify this by suggesting this trend is definitely applicable to mature companies and potentially the established & growing companies – but less so to emerging companies launching their 1st or 2nd product.
In our consulting practice we tend to group companies into buckets as described above and treat them as experiencing different trends and having different needs. For example, a mature organization see global implementation of a large, integrated, internally supported quality management IT system (QMS) as a way to achieve virtualized global efficiencies, while an emerging company may opt for a hosted, on-demand, web-based QMS to achieve global collaboration.
Finally, as we look at hot topics for the coming year, let’s not forget the chronic themes of potential compliance issues (e.g. FDA observations), patent expirations and improving operational performance (e.g. production yield).
I can’t agree more. Pharma 2.0 means Quality Management 2.0, IT Validation 2.0 and innovations through every business and production process. Companies which have started this year with such approaches can now cut down costs at about 30 %, in parellel strengthend their compliance level. If it is a pharma-ready MS Sharepoint platform used as DMS, electronic Validation Tools or integrated QM solutions – all of them help to reduce costs and cover the hot topics of audits and regulatory requirements. Some suppliers also support and deliver iPhone Apps, Google office, open source software and so on -how far can we go? As long as it helps to delivery traceabilitiy, compliance and even reducing costs I really like all the different solutions.