Amazon for medicines?

Pharmaphorum | Paul Stuart-Kregor

Pharma should stop saying the Amazon model is 'not for us', argues Paul Stuart-Kregor, but should instead consider where an integrated digital channel/supply channel model could bring benefits to healthcare systems, patients and the industry alike.

Given its ubiquity on the web, it is hard to believe that Amazon doesn't celebrate its 20th birthday until next year. And yet when it first went online in 1995, many gave the concept of an online retailer little chance of success; certainly few envisaged the company becoming the behemoth it is today.

At first glance, Amazon is simply a mail-order company, taking its orders online, but fulfilling them much as many mail-order retailers had done before (by post; it will probably be the Amazon model which is the saviour of our universal postal service, but that is another story).

Of course, although it was, and still is, highly innovative, Amazon is about dealing direct with the consumer. This is why the pharmaceutical industry, whilst it loves to look at innovations in other sectors, has tended to think that the Amazon model is not applicable.

Pharma optimistic about future, worried about reputation

Pharma Times | Kevin Grogan

A major global survey, “testing the health of the pharmaceutical industry”, has revealed that a sizeable majority of executives polled believe the sector is in good shape but are concerned its reputation.

Some 971 executives have responded to a survey from eyeforpharma which has compiled an ‘industry healthcheck’. It shows that 22% think the industry’s reputation is not improving amongst the general public, though 46% think they know what the industry needs to do to improve it. However, Pierre Morgon, chief marketing officer at Cegedim, is not so sure, claiming that “the industry keeps looking at some of its members misbehaving, without taking any action”, with the exception of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry.