The strategic implications of gene technologies for the pharmaceutical industries

Résumé du document

The "bio drugs" allowed to treat diseases which have still today no remedies, diseases which are very expensive for the society. Unfortunately, needs of funds are huge and international markets are not well prepared yet. According to Henri Termeer, president of Genzyme Inc: "the healthcare market is focused on the cost reduction and not on the innovations' introduction". Companies will record improvements both in efficiency and in success rates along the value chain, and the average cost and time needed to bring a new drug to market will fall correspondingly. In fact, developing a new drug should become considerably less unpredictable and much less expensive. Those that embrace the revolution most boldly could potentially halve the cost and time it takes to make a new drug, if they meet certain challenges successfully. As in any revolution, the risks for a firm of standing aside may be greater than those of getting involved. The revolution is real, and will leave no one untouched

Extraits

[...] The company's hierarchy and the traditional procedures may change when such an evolution occurs. At first, R&D department is involved, and then the entire corporation. With the value chain a lot things changed, the processes are different from before, and the changes will beyond the standard managerial system, many disparities and stresses will inevitably develop in the former managerial system. Some new pressures will weaken the old structure. To restore a new cohesion, a company may need to undertake some organizational reshaping and especially redistributing areas of responsibility, of course at first it should be within but after also within the whole company. [...]

[...] Before to launch a value chain's modification, individual function heads must understand what will happen, how and when gene technologies might affect them. They should be contemplating which gene will allow them to create new drugs. After this step achieves, a strong staff should take care of restore a balance where supply and demand are aligned in order to manage projects with optimal efficiency, that is important because this balance is a precarious one, and needs careful and regular maintenance. Which evolutions for the company's structure? [...]

[...] According to the firm's size, its aspirations, and its power on the market, the management department will determine the firm's strategy between to be on the “bleeding edge” or to be a technology follower. Either way, the company after been informed of what evolution of gene technologies approaches are, can adjust its own strategy accordingly. If the firm decide to be innovative, it must also programme when and how to invest. The answer still depends of its size, a large company will ask itself how to apply it and in which therapeutic area, but a small biotech firm must decide with who it would be the best to associate. [...]

[...] The American government spend 13,6% of its GDP inside the care of health ($4000 per year and per person), the underdeveloped countries spend in the same time that is to say $50 per person. Can we reduce this North/South disparities thanks to gene technologies? Or, in a other way, in a context of international tensions, specially with the bioterrorism, biofirms could play a major role to tackle this threats, one of the strategy could be to work with States through this niche. [...]

[...] A first, some diseases states are tractable thanks to genomics approaches and it is compulsory for R&D department to continue their effort in this way to stay competitive. The power's degree of this new technologies depends in a large part on several factors, according to specialist, they are: degree to which the disease is genetic in nature, the current understanding of disease processes at a molecular or genetic level, and so Secondly, the R&D's targets, when general gene and genomics research is going on, must follow the science's evolution. The former targets are determined on traditional therapeutic area, so the old focus is supposed to constantly evolve. [...]