We have all heard stories about greed and price hikes by pharmaceutical companies and that too at the most crucial time. In fact, several years ago, it was reported that thousands of Africans were dying from AIDS while pharmaceutical companies claimed that it was not possible to cut the prices of their $15,000-a-year HIV medicines. Whatever our thoughts about the pharma industry, at this time of the Covid-19 pandemic, it is this industry that has worked tirelessly to discover vaccines to keep the world safe from the virus.
The amazing thing about the pharmaceutical industry is its ability to change and reinvent itself to the conditions it faces. Indeed, Big pharma has even welcomed the presence of smaller pharmaceutical or biotech markets, seeing them as resources for specialization in certain areas of research and innovation which can benefit the industry. In fact, pharmaceutical companies are outsourcing to Contract Research Organizations (CROs) which are able to offer their support to the industry in almost any part of the drug development process.
A Patient-Centric Pharma Industry
There’s been a growing consciousness in society that big businesses need to be more customer/patient-centric rather than product-centric and the pharma industry has been quick to embrace this ideal. An example is the area of innovation therapy. Innovation therapy refers to a newly introduced or modified therapy that is unproven in its effects or side effects but is undertaken with the best interest of the patient in mind. Its focus is the goal of the therapy which is to assist the patient rather than the risks or the newness of the therapy.
It’s about the patient
With patients as a priority, the pharma industry has been moving towards adopting digital transformation of the industry. Digitalization has pushed the industry to be more transparent. This is because more and more patients are getting onto online platforms to talk to independent specialists about a medicine’s efficiency. This has prompted the industry to share product information with as many doctors and specialists as possible rather than being the sole provider of drug-related information.
The exponential increase of sophisticated health apps has greatly helped in the digitalization of healthcare. These days, health apps are covering many areas within healthcare such as testing and diagnostics, mental health monitoring, and primary care services among other things. Knowing that digitalization has greatly empowered patients, the industry has whole-heartedly embraced the digital transformation warranted within the industry.
As people become more aware of the environment in the 21st Century, the pharma industry has also signed up for sustainable business strategies. It is a fact that the manufacturing processes within the industry implies that there will be high levels of toxic waste as well as a significant quantity of water being used for drug formulation. This makes it difficult for the industry to be sustainable in its practice. However, several large pharma companies signed the American Business Action on Climate Pledge in 2015 as a commitment to being more sustainable in their business practice and have begun doing so.
Opportunities for Doctors at the Pharma Industry
Although doctors who transit to the pharma industry are at times labelled as selling their souls for money by those who remain in clinical service, those who have transited are of the opinion that they are helping many more people than they ordinarily would had they remained in clinical service.
Doctors in the pharma industry know that they are engaging in the common good of society by serving as educators conveying crucial information and data regarding research and new medicines to groups of doctors. These doctors will in turn take this information and convey them to their patients who may be in dire need of them.
The pharma industry needs doctors in various divisions and these include Medical Affairs, Regulatory Affairs, Pharmaceutical Vigilance, Clinical Research, Quality Assurance and Sales and Marketing.
