Groundhog Days for Pharma

A little late in February (Groundhog Day is 2 Feb) I am struck by the applicability of the "life repeats itself" idea to the pharmaceutical industry.  We are currently in the early phase of the movie, where Bill Murray is depressed and trapped by being forced to wake up and relive the same day every day.

Every few months we hear that one bloated and inefficient company is merging with another one.  Each time, an almost identical press release is issued promising "significant economies of scale" and "research synergies" due to the "complementary pipelines" of the combined behemoth. 

The merged company is still inefficient, but the numbers are a bit bigger now. Support functions are merged and streamlined, sales reps are culled, R&D projects terminated, manufacturing sites mothballed. This generates fake numbers that make it look like the merged company is addressing the real issues, but underneath it is still the same animal. It soon has to look for another company to swallow to keep generating the momentum its investors demand.

Until we move to the "late phase" of the movie, and start adapting to the healthcare situation in the 21st century, pharma's Groundhog Day is destined to repeat itself.  There are huge opportunities to do good things, explore new business models and break the cycle, but we have to start thinking differently.

If we are ever to develop economic healthcare for all, from cradle to grave, Utah to Uganda, it will involve more than just finding a few blockbusters.  It will need more than just drugs. The "drug industry" needs to start providing a genuine service to its customers, and to focus on keeping them in good health, not just medicalising and treating any deviations from optimum well being.  Pharma must engage with patients much more directly, and learn to love health as much as illness, if it is to have relevance in the next hundred years.