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Greater specialization, less aggressive marketing, and cooperation instead of mergers and acquisitions. These are some of the features of the pharmaceutical industry in the future stated in a series of studies performed by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and called “Pharmaceutics 2020: Which Way to Take?”. According to one study, the volume of the global pharmaceutical market will double to $ 1.3 billion within a ten-year period. The new model of the market with medicaments will be characterized by the following main features accompanied by comments from Lenka Mrázová, head of the Tax and Legal Services of PricewaterhouseCoopers Czech Republic:

1. The role of wholesale will decrease – more sophisticated delivery channels will become more efficient: “The delivery channels of the future will not be responsible for distributing medicaments and services only, but they will create new ways to offer products as well. Today they are considered primarily a substantial expense but they will create profits in the future. The pharmaceutical industry is inspired by other fields such as the automotive industry and its just-in-time deliveries.”

2. The benefits of cooperation among pharmaceutical companies will outweigh the need for mergers and acquisitions: “Although the existent wave of mergers and acquisitions will not cease altogether, pharmaceutical companies will realize that there are alternatives with much bigger potential added value. The recently set up joint company of Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline, which focuses solely on development and sale of drugs against HIV, shows that pharmaceutical companies are starting to look for new ways of cooperation.”

3. The character of the cooperation of pharmaceutical companies with other parties will change: “Pharmaceutical companies will be creating networks of independent cooperating entities that will share one support infrastructure though. A cooperative network may, in addition to an independent medicaments producer, include universities, hospitals, policlinics, technology suppliers, analytical companies or healthy lifestyle services providers operating in many countries.”   

4. Research and development will be much more efficient: the “virtual patient” will save costs: “The model of a virtual patient could be created through interconnection of already existing technologies. Scientists around the globe are developing models of the heart and other organs, and of cellular, muscular and skeletal systems. These models can be used for the simulation of physiological impacts of specific medicaments on humans. Already now there is a company that has, thanks to virtual technology, cut the time needed to perform clinical trials down by some 40% and reduced the number of patients involved by two thirds.”    

5. Massive sale campaigns will disappear and more emphasis will be placed on specialized medicaments and medical procedures: “The existing large sales departments of pharmaceutical companies will be substituted by much smaller, more flexible and efficient teams. Their managers will negotiate orders on the basis of tenders with medical results and benefits for patients being the criteria. Emphasis will no longer be placed on the quantity of medicaments sold, but on the added value provided. Most pharmaceutical companies will offer integrated packages of medicaments and services, and the value of some services will even exceed that of medicaments.”  

6. The role of patients and health care payers will increase: “With the rising costs of health care, its payers – governments and private insurance companies alike – will become the final authority deciding on how much the cure shall cost, what reimbursements given and what medicament prescribed. The value of products and the subsequent price have been for years decided upon by pharmaceutical companies. These have been so far dedicating only minimum efforts to find out what the right market price of there products is.      

7. Patients will be checked more as to whether they adhere to the prescribed medical procedure: “Up to one fifth of patients in the U.S. do not respect the prescribed procedure of application of medicaments, or they take products intended for someone else. No fewer than sixty per cent of the ill are unable to say what medicaments they are taking. Using the most state-of-the-art technologies, pharmaceutical companies will have to develop personalized monitoring techniques that will make application of medicaments easier for patients and secure efficient use of funds provided by health care payers.”   

8. The emphasis will shift from cure onto prevention: “The current funding of prevention in the OECD countries makes only three per cent of the whole of the means spent on health care. The World Health Organization however states that 80% of heart attacks and ictuses, and 40% of tumorous diseases could be prevented through prevention. The approach of the pharmaceutical industry towards medical management will be dramatically re-evaluated thanks to the financial efficiency of prevention. Health care programs, monitoring of one’s state of health, vaccination, and other services with added value will become prominent.”                         

9. International cooperation of regulators will strengthen: “Several national and regional regulators have already started exchanging data on safety and efficiency of medicaments. By 2020 there could be only one global regulating system, run by national or federal agencies, securing that new medical procedures will meet patients’ needs. The new system will reduce expenses flowing into legal and regulatory consulting services.”

10. The pharmaceutical industry will find developing economies ever more attractive: “By 2020, seven big developing economies – Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia and Turkey – could be responsible for one fifth of all the takings of the pharmaceutical industry in the world. Besides, the civilization diseases that are typical for the developed world will have by then spread into developing economies as well.” 

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