Pharma’s Oncology Focus: Some Key Drivers With Pros And Cons For Patients

Pharma’s Oncology Focus: Some Key Drivers With Pros And Cons For Patients

Just in the first ten days of the brand-new year – 2019, three important oncology focused acquisitions were announced by three top global pharma companies.

On January 03, 2019, Bristol-Myers Squibb announced that it will acquire Celgene for a hefty sum of USD 74 billion to be a leading Biopharma player, focusing on high-value innovative medicines. As reported by BioSpace on January 04, 2019, the BMS CEO said, the combined might of the two pipelines will create “the number one oncology franchise” for both solid and hematologic tumors.

Just four days thereafter, on January 7, 2019, at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, Eli Lilly announced that it will acquire targeted cancer drug maker Loxo Oncology for USD 8 billion. This deal gives the company TRK inhibitor Vitrakvi – the first drug approved by the FDA to target tumors based on genetic abnormality, rather than the location of the cancer.

On June 08 2019, at the same J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, GlaxoSmithKline CEO Emma Walmsley, reportedly said that GSK has agreed to acquire already approved PARP inhibitor Zejula as well as a range of pipeline assets valued USD 5 billion.It’s noteworthy that Walmsley announced the company’s new focus on oncology just the last year and has now almost doubled its immuno-oncology pipeline.

Even in the last year – 2018, a significant number of oncology focused Merger and Acquisitions (M&A) took place. The acquisition values are also interesting – ranging from a few-hundred million to billions of USD. In this article, I shall examine what could be the main drivers of this emerging trend with its pros and cons from the patients’ perspective, in general. As a brief backdrop, let me start with a few examples of such M&As in 2018.

Some oncology focused M&As in 2018:

Following are examples of some oncology focused acquisitions that took place in 2018:

• In January 2018, Celgene Corporation, which has now been acquired by Bristol-Myers Squibb, announced theacquisition of Juno Therapeutics for about USD 9 billion. This deal came shortly after Celgene’s deal for Impact Biomedicines valuing USD 1.1 billion.

• In late-January 2018, the biggest deals this year were by Sanofi. It acquired Waltham, Massachusetts-based Bioverativ for about USD 11.6 billion. Bioverativ was a spinoff by Biogen. About a week later, Sanofi bought Ghent, Belgium-based Ablynx for USD 4.8 billion.

• In April 2018, Roche completed its acquisition of Flatiron Health, an oncology-specific digital health company for about USD 1.9 billion.

• In the same month of April 2018, Shire sold its oncology business to France’s Servier for USD 2.4 billion.

• In May 2018,  Janssen Biotech, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen Pharmaceuticals, announced that it was buying Rockville, Maryland-based BeneVir Biopharma, in a deal of more than USD 1 billion.

Thus, the question that follows: what could be the primary drivers of this trend?

The primary drivers:

In my view, the primary drivers for focus on the oncology segment by pharma and biotech companies is a combination of the following factors: …continue reading…

Gamification in Pharma: Creates Engaging Patient Experience For Better Results

Gamification in Pharma: Creates Engaging Patient Experience For Better Results

On January 03, 2019, media reports flashed – “A video game-based ‘digital medicine’ tool can help reduce symptoms in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention/deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).” This study was published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, confirming the feasibility and safety of the tool called Project: EVO, which delivers sensory and motor stimuli through an action video game experience.

This initiative reconfirms that technology is becoming a great enabler to provide integrated, comprehensive and cost effective approach in treating many diseases, particularly with ‘Digital Medicine.’ The above report on ‘Project EVO’ is an example of application of the concept of ‘gamification’ in digital medicine. Many consider ‘gamification’ as a game changer to create an engaging patient experience with added value. It makes patients getting involved in the disease-treatment process, especially for effective self-management of chronic disorders.

I shall focus on this area in today’s article, giving examples wherever available. However, let me start by recapitulating what is ‘gamification’ in the pharma industry.

Gamification: 

The Oxford dictionary defines ‘gamification’ as: ‘The application of typical elements of game playing (e.g. point scoring, competition with others, rules of play) to other areas of activity, typically as an online marketing technique to encourage engagement with a product or service.’ It further adds, ‘gamification is exciting because it promises to make the hard stuff in life fun.’

‘Gamification’ is assuming increasing importance, with disruptive digital innovations gradually becoming game changers in the pharma business. This is mainly because, it can deliver to a specific group of patients, doctors or other stakeholders exactly what they look for – with precision.

I suggested in my article, published in this blog on January 07, 2019 that pharma companies should facilitate self-management of chronicailments,not just for better outcomes, but also for improving the quality of patient engagement. To achieve this objective,‘gamification’ could play a remarkable role-such as disease awareness and prevention and when afflicted its desirable self-management. This has the potential to create a win-win situation between patients and a drug company.

This is so important, as ‘the old paradigm of the paternalistic model of medicine is now transforming into an equal level partnership between patients and professionals, aided and augmented by disruptive technologies. This comment was made in a study titled, ‘Digital health is a cultural transformation of traditional health care,’ published in mHealth on September 14, 2017.

‘Patient-doctor partnership is critical in the new paradigm:

One of the major ways to develop a partnership between the treating doctors along with the product/service providing pharma companies and patients is through mutually beneficial ‘patient engagement’ programs with added value.…continue reading….

Pharma: Experts’ Handholding is Pivotal in Digital Marketing Transition Phase

Pharma: Experts’ Handholding is Pivotal in Digital Marketing Transition Phase

Pilman – A Tapan Ray Website on Helathcare” completes 10 years, today. 

Inspired by some of my dear friends, I created this website on January 14, 2009. Since then, reasonably well-researched articles, penned by me, on various aspects of health care, and the pharma industry, appeared in this blog – on every Monday morning of every week – uninterrupted – not even once. It did not just happen, I took a vow to make it happen with the same zeal, consistency and frequency, in the first 10 years of its launch – come what may. 

During this period, I have been humbled by tens of thousands of my dear readers, from all over the world, who went through these articles –  spending their valuable time. Today, with all humility, I bow my head before each of my readers to make it happen. After Ten years – a time has now come for me to decide what next. Thank you so much, from the very core of my heart.

Talking about digital marketing in pharma is virtually a fad now. It sounds so modern, sleek and is a great attention getter, especially in the tradition bound pharma industry. Advertisements of umpteen number of training programs are spilling all over. Even those who never worked with digital marketing in pharma, or possess any basic theoretical knowledge in this technology, are jumping into the fray. Some trainers claim to impart subject knowledge in the pharma domain, while others assert facilitating quick implementation of digital marketing by pharma executives.

Thus, the question that follows, why is the sudden interest in digital marketing for pharma by such trainers? What is happening in reality after these trainings? Is one blind man trying to help another blind man in this area, or it is a competition for sheer eyeball grabbing? Some friends in the industry do say, the common thread of ‘imparting training’ of this nature on digital marketing – outside any pharma company, is possibly the intent of ‘making a quick buck, while the sun shines.’

To me, this sounds too blunt a statement, as I reckon, expression of such a view will be unfair to formally qualified digital experts with proven experience of success in the pharma domain. Some of them also offer handholding young marketing professionals, with reasonable accountability, as they gradually transition from the traditional pharma to an integrated digital marketing model. In this article, I shall focus on this area by affirming, while digital softwares, tools and their applications aren’t anything new in pharma, making an integrated digital marketing process work effectively, is indeed a new necessity in the industry.

Digital tools and applications aren’t new in pharma: 

As I said, digital tools and applications aren’t new in pharma. For example, many Indian companies have already implemented likes of ‘Enterprise resource planning (ERP)’. This is basically an integrated business process management software that enables the organization to run their business processes, including finance, accounting, supply chain, sales, manufacturing and human resources, in an integrated environment. Some companies have also introduced field-staff reporting in digital format and online. Nevertheless, digital marketing in pharma being a new necessity, let me elaborate below what is digital marketing, and what it is not.

What is digital marketing and what it is not:

As defined by The Financial Times Lexicon, digital marketing is:

• Marketing of products or services using digital channels to reach consumers. The key objective is to promote brands through various forms of digital media.

• Digital marketing extends beyond internet marketing to include channels that do not require the use of the internet. It includes mobile phones, social media marketing, display advertising, search engine marketing, and any other form of digital media. 

And what digital marketing is not:

• Digital marketing is not just yet another channel for marketing It requires a new approach to marketing and a new understanding of customer behavior.…continue reading…

Pharma To Facilitate Self-Managing Chronic Diseases For Better Outcomes?

Pharma To Facilitate Self-Managing Chronic Diseases For Better Outcomes?

“India’s burden of non-communicable disease (NCD) is escalating, but still the country does not have sufficiently detailed data on NCDs for research and policy purposes.” This was captured in a recent study, titled “India’s escalating burden of non-communicable diseases,” published in The Lancet Global Health on October 03, 2018. Thus, many experts are pondering, how to contain this menace and lower the disease burden of NCDs, in this situation. One of the ways to address this issue is exploring some unconventional ways.

As several studies have established, improving ‘self-management’ of chronic diseases by patients, after proper diagnosis and a treatment plan being in place, is one of the pillars to lower the disease burden. One such study is titled, ‘Patients’ knowledge of their chronic disease,’ appeared on June 2013 – Vol 42 (6) issue in the journal of afp – Australian Family Physician. The paper highlights that effective tools, policies and other measures to help self-management, would facilitate the process. These arecritical not just for better outcomes, but also to reduce the overall treatment cost.

In a similar context, another recent article, titled ‘Why Apps for Managing Chronic Disease Haven’t Been Widely Used, and How to Fix It,’ published in The Harvard Business Review (HBR) on April 04, 2018 made an interesting observation. The authors wondered: “In an era where nearly, every consumer good and service — from books and groceries to babysitting and shared rides — can be purchased through an electronic transaction on a mobile device, it seems reasonable to think that more and more of our health care can also be managed using apps on mobile devices.”

This article will dwell in this area, based on several interesting and credible research findings. Nevertheless, to give a proper perspective, I shall start with a brief outline on the incidence of chronic diseases in India.

Increasing incidence of chronic diseases in India:

There are several recent reports confirming the ascending trend of non-infectious chronic diseases in India, two of which are as follows:…continue reading…