{"id":6269,"date":"2013-01-21T18:16:00","date_gmt":"2013-01-21T18:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pharma-mkting.com\/is-pharma-too-big-to-succeed\/"},"modified":"2019-02-21T01:18:00","modified_gmt":"2019-02-21T01:18:00","slug":"is-pharma-too-big-to-succeed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ec2-54-175-84-28.compute-1.amazonaws.com\/pharma-mkting.com\/blog\/is-pharma-too-big-to-succeed\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Pharma Too Big to Succeed?"},"content":{"rendered":"

You’ve heard of investment banks being “Too Big To Fail” as an excuse for government intervention. After reading the book “Devalued and Distrusted” by John LaMattina, former Pfizer president of R&D, I’ve come up with a new twist on corporate bigness and failure: Pharma is Too Big to Succeed; well, succeed alone.<\/p>\n

LaMattina does says that \u201cindustry consolidation of the last 15 years has resulted in less competition, less investment in R&D, and a gradual decrease in the approval of new medicines\u2026such a trend should be alarming,\u201d according to LaMattina.<\/p>\n

LaMattina cites M&A\u2019s disruptive consequences, such as cost-cutting, site closures, shifting of people and projects, etc. However, a few pages on, LaMattina points out that big pharmaceutical companies cannot meet a glaring unmet medical need for new antibiotics because the \u201ccommercial return on a new antibiotic would pale in comparison to a new treatment in areas like cancer or Alzheimer\u2019s Disease. This is attributed to the fact that an antibiotic is generally used acutely,\u201d says LaMattina, \u201cnot chronically, and so profits are diminished by short-term use. . . This narrow use. . . [makes] it unattractive for a big<\/i> [my emphasis] company.\u201d La Mattina suggests that fulfilling such unmet medical needs is \u201cideally suited to the expertise of biotech companies.\u201d<\/p>\n

These musings and others in the book seem to undermine LaMattina\u2019s goal, which is to correct the public\u2019s perception of the drug industry \u2013 a perception that has been distorted by the media such as The Dr. Oz Show where he made a fateful guest appearance. Much to LaMattina\u2019s chagrin, the show was titled \u201cThe Four Secrets that Drug Companies Don\u2019t Want You to Know.\u201d His book is in many ways an attempt to rebuff the premise of that one show by addressing the \u201cfour secrets,\u201d which are:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Drug companies underestimate dangerous side effects<\/li>\n
  2. Drug companies control much of the information your doctor gets<\/li>\n
  3. You\u2019re often prescribed drugs that you don\u2019t need<\/li>\n
  4. Drugs target symptoms, not the cause<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \nI\u2019m not going to get into all of LaMattina\u2019s thoughts on these issues. You\u2019ll have to read the book yourself. Unfortunately, as I mentioned in a previous post, the paperback version costs $29.95, which means most of the American public will never buy it. Even if they did buy it, I doubt they would read it because it is pretty technical and seems to be written more for physicians than for the lay public.<\/p>\n

    Back to the \u201csecrets.\u201d I\u2019d like to focus on LaMattina\u2019s rebuff of \u201csecret\u201d #4 and how it relates to the topic of this post; that is, Pharma is Too Big to Succeed.<\/p>\n

    IMHO, LaMattina, fails to convince me that Big Pharma focuses on the causes of diseases rather than the symptoms. When he waxes on about the benefits of \u201ctargeted therapies,\u201d for example, he says we are \u201cnot far from the time when a cancer diagnosis\u201d will be one \u201cof a chronic disease, one that might not necessarily be cured but rather treated with a variety of medications that will keep one\u2019s cancer in check. . . what a wonderful situation for patients,\u201d says LaMattina. Obviously, postponing death \u2013 a major \u201csymptom\u201d of cancer \u2013 is wonderful for many patients. It\u2019s also wonderful for Big Pharma, which currently has about 1000 \u201cnovel anticancer agents\u201d in clinical development.<\/p>\n

    LaMattina suggests he may be \u201cna\u00efve\u201d when he assumes expensive targeted cancer drugs when used in combinations can be delivered at a \u201creasonable cost.\u201d It\u2019s only this hope that he cites to counter the point he makes earlier that paying for all these new cancer treatments \u201cwill become unsustainable.\u201d Treatments are not so \u201cwonderful\u201d when they are not sustainable, IMHO.<\/p>\n

    LaMittina also points out that Big Pharma spends only about 15% of its R&D budget on \u201cR\u201d; i.e., basic research. Research is much better left to NIH, academia and other government funded labs. LaMittina gives the public sector credit for this basic research and points out that \u201ca successful academic-industry partnership is crucial in discovering new medicines.\u201d In those cases where NIH is \u201cdiverting\u201d hundreds of millions of dollars to do \u201cdrug discovery,\u201d LaMittina suggests this is \u201cclearly better done by industry,\u201d which is responsible for 90% of new drugs approved for marketing by the FDA.<\/p>\n

    So, it\u2019s clear that Big Pharma cannot succeed on its own and should not lay claim to all advances in \u201ccuring\u201d diseases such as cancer. <\/p>\n

    Despite the economic realities of Big Pharma companies mentioned above, LaMattina on one hand says that \u201cBig Pharma can gain a lot of good will, something it desperately needs, by fully committing to rare diseases\u2026\u201d On the other hand, LaMattina suggests that Big Pharma needs to be happy with a \u201cniche blockbuster\u201d model whereby instead of having a \u201cfew $10 billion-selling drugs,\u201d it has \u201cmany billion dollar products.\u201d <\/p>\n

    As I pointed out in a previous blog post, it is possible to have billion dollar \u201corphan drugs\u201d targeted at rare diseases IF the price is right. One such drug is Pfizer’s Xalkori (crizotinib), a newly approved for a rare form of lung cancer, for which Pfizer plans to charge $115,200 a year per patient. LaMattina cites Xalkori many times in his book as a wonder drug, but does not mention the price Pfizer wants to charge for it. At that price Pfizer only needs 9000 patients to reach a billion dollars in sales! (see \u201cNew Big Pharma Economies of Scale: Less Patients Needed to Reach Blockbuster Sales<\/a>\u201d).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    You’ve heard of investment banks being “Too Big To Fail” as an excuse for government intervention. After reading the book “Devalued and Distrusted” by John LaMattina, former Pfizer president of R&D, I’ve come up with a new twist on corporate bigness and failure: Pharma is Too Big to Succeed; well, succeed alone. LaMattina does says […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13101,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[489,311,108,569,107],"topic":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nIs Pharma Too Big to Succeed? - Pharma Marketing Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/ec2-54-175-84-28.compute-1.amazonaws.com\/pharma-mkting.com\/blog\/is-pharma-too-big-to-succeed\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Is Pharma Too Big to Succeed? - Pharma Marketing Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"You’ve heard of investment banks being “Too Big To Fail” as an excuse for government intervention. 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