Pharmaceutical Executive | William Looney
2013 is the industry's year of
respite, a brief intermission that gives the C-suite extra time to adjust the
reel on that slow motion movie with the payer voiceover that says: "how's
that hopey changey thing working for you?" For Big Pharma, time moves in
small increments, set by the minute hand of the patent clock. It is unique
among sectors in being able to predict precisely when market dominance fades to
loss. Nevertheless, all that certainty about the endpoints of the product
lifecycle has done little to force company cultures to move faster in
reinventing their business models to keep pace with disruptive change.
This year provides one more
trial run to the future. Management can still hedge their answers about what it
takes to succeed in markets that face relentless pressures of commoditization,
where drug companies have to fight not just among themselves but with every
other health provider, for every incremental dollar of revenue. The question,
for every company, is more or less the same: I've scrutinized my assets, sold
off and restructured operations, slashed my SG&A/income ratio to single digits,
but now what? Where is my Act II, the forward plan that positions us to achieve
real top-line growth?