Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - February 11, 2009 - (Page 10) Overlooked Opportunity Your sales can be boosted if you change the patients, not the drug, by way of diagnostics, says Amit Agarwal. I f you look at pharma’s pipeline, you’ll see that personalised medicine is powering drug development. Every major pharma company has a biomarker development programme to bring new targeted therapies to market. But there’s also an opportunity for companies to apply the paradigm of personalised drugs — specifically, the use of diagnostics to “test and treat” — to therapies already on the market. Companies can leverage diagnostics to drive sales by identifying patients who respond to a given therapy. Industry can best apply this tactic to smaller revenue drugs, where traditional techniques are either ineffective or don’t offer a good return on investment. For pharma companies facing a difficult economic climate, pairing diagnostics with therapies offers a powerful incentive: Manufacturers can improve sales by helping physicians find the most appropriate therapeutic option. One of the key benefits of this approach is that the molecule remains unchanged; rather, the patient base is selected to maximise benefit — which is less expensive than conducting additional clinical trials for new and improved molecules. Not many small-molecule drugs are effective across the general populations they purport to help. Still, within these uninspiring numbers, there are subgroups of patients that do respond to treatment. Companies that launch a diagnostic test can identify these subgroups of “responders,” build relationships with doctors by providing them a tool that dictates effective treatment and spares patients adverse events, and argue the value of the drug to payers. Yet pharmaceutical companies have ignored the opportunity to utilise the same biomarkers and resulting diagnostics for marketed drugs because of one key difference: There isn’t a one-toone correlation. Rather, diagnostics for marketed drugs identify patients that 13 BUSINESS ETHICS Could you blow the whistle? 16 ON THE MOVE This weeks appointments and promotions 2 FROM THE EDITOR A week in pharma is a long time 3 NEWS Best new antidepressants named
Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - February 11, 2009 Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - February 11, 2009 Contents From the Editor News Calendar Actavis Exclusive Diagnostics Business Ethics On the Move Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - February 11, 2009 Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - February 11, 2009 - Contents (Page 1) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - February 11, 2009 - From the Editor (Page 2) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - February 11, 2009 - News (Page 3) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - February 11, 2009 - News (Page 4) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - February 11, 2009 - Calendar (Page 5) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - February 11, 2009 - Calendar (Page 6) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - February 11, 2009 - Actavis Exclusive (Page 7) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - February 11, 2009 - Actavis Exclusive (Page 8) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - February 11, 2009 - Actavis Exclusive (Page 9) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - February 11, 2009 - Diagnostics (Page 10) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - February 11, 2009 - Diagnostics (Page 11) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - February 11, 2009 - Diagnostics (Page 12) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - February 11, 2009 - Business Ethics (Page 13) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - February 11, 2009 - Business Ethics (Page 14) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - February 11, 2009 - Business Ethics (Page 15) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - February 11, 2009 - On the Move (Page 16)
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