Anuj Kapoor identified seven key challenges to pharmaceutical firms from his interviews:
- Building trust. There is little trust among players in the pharmaceutical arena. The underlying belief is that if pharma profits, managed care providers will not profit. This thinking needs to morph into win-win solutions.
- Understanding your customers. Pharmaceutical companies must move beyond strictly knowing how to make safe and effective drugs to understanding how their customers use these medicines.
- Accessing patient outcomes data. All segments of the industry need patient outcomes data, and the managed care segment needs to share its patient information.
- Changing customer base. The pharma industry is no longer selling just to doctors; they are selling to payers and hospitals, and this requires deeper knowledge about patients.
- Incentivize innovation. Other healthcare players have more incentive to innovate. Pharmaceutical manufacturers are highly regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, which leaves little room for innovation.
- New reimbursement patterns. Lack of reimbursement for “incremental” innovation means that many new medicines do not get put on formularies.
- High margin expectations. Level 3 solutions will not necessarily be $1 billion business units; companies must learn to adapt to diverse margin structures.