Teva will it follow the BMS way?

After the investor's day update last week that Teva will be saving around USD 2 Billion of cash going forward. Mr Jermy levin has started implementing the process. Today Teva announced that its scrapping a $300 million warehouse project in Philadelphia has been halted.

Levin recently laid out a 5-year plan to diversify the company's products and to save up to $2 billion in large part by making its manufacturing operations more efficient. 

In light of the evaluation, a spokesperson said in an emailed statement, "As such, we have made the decision to cease development plans for the proposed distribution center on Red Lion Road in Philadelphia. At this time we cannot elaborate further about plans for this property."

What will be interesting going forward that there will be more possibility that Teva will also collaborate with some big Asian generic/biopharma companies for small molecule development the same lines BMS did with research outsourcing to India based Biocon some years back..... As he was key stakeholder involved in the famous BMS- Biocon alliance in India. Will Jermy move that way only time will say? 

CRO's New Marketing game!

Today at one side I have been down with fever but one promotion by Quintiles intrigued me " Quintiles: your RA partner"


RA landscape has been the most interesting landscape both in terms of small molecules and bio generics....Abbott had already been a market leader in terms of Humira but Pfizer has big plans for capturing the market share and we need to look at how it’s going to go for its pricing so that it has quick approval from the regulatory bodies in European region...
Now we need to just see if quintiles is going to be trials partner for the major companies who are investing in this segment for both the big daddy’s and bio generics and generic manufacturers in the RA landscape as compared to oncology its comparative easy market entry......What will be the next strategy for Icon, Paraxel, PPD and convance?

Teva the giant......Will it be major contributor in Pharma Consolidation?

Jermy Levin became a Teva CEO long time back and I think has completed his probation period. Teva as a company is very conservation on its approach in advancement in any particular space in terms of indication attractiveness and product opportunities. After long time I was hearing Jermy Levin speak about its move....Teva for some time has been dwindling in a particular frame of mind as being a generic player or move differently the innovative path. What I am very positive about is that Jermy Levin was one of kind who made difference for BMS and i hope that he will have better success story to be told in future for Teva.........Teva like Novartis will be a one of the key player of the next Pharma consolidation happening by year 2020

Sanofi with New MENA Strategy!

Some one year back I wrote about companies like Merck and Novartis opening their shop floors in Turkey and how Turkey going forward is becoming a hot destination  for drug marketing and promotion, in a recent progress Sanofi is looking for acquisition of Czech company Zentiva which is worth $2.6 Billion , the deal will help Sanofi accelerate its presence in the MENA region as Zentiva has strong presence in the region….last month there were update for Biosimilar development by companies for MENA region…..after India and China ……MENA is the next favorable destination going forward

MENA: Middle East and North Africa

Will these two drugs save Pfizer????

In year 2012 I will consider November as the best month for Pfizer as it has got approval for two important drugs which the analyst and the scientists believe that will mark a difference for Pfizer in terms of the blockbuster game, though now a days in the pharma world more than the blockbuster image it’s the overall maintenance of the market value....... Pfizer got approval for its two major products where in the market is very lucrative.......Tofacitinib and Eliquis are a class drug in their own way but will both these drugs be able to reach Lipitor sales status as expected....only time will say? 

J&J......will it be there in the race?

J&J is a company to watch for....being the company with one of the best credo's available till date with it vision and mission in place for more than 150 years, though there have been so many changes going around but this company has always been one of pioneers with good pipeline and products in the market. What I am still not able to understand is that why this company has not gone ahead for its biosimilar development...As everyone has joined the rat race, what is J&J going to do?

Like the other giant who have been all over the place, I though that by 2012 J&J will be part of the game and will announce but I think my hopes will not turn into reality soon.

RNAi the bubble era!!

Last decade we heard, read and wrote about RNAi technology....every one used to say we have one technology which will hit into the granular level, there were many deals which were happening in this segment, from year 2005 to 2010 there were significant number of deals in this segment but somehow the bubble has faded away....Not many companies are talking about it..Last two years I have not seen many major deals happening in this segment and some biggies have even scrapped their projects... still companies and scientists are doing research but we are still in the hope that this technology will bear some fruits in the coming years....I hope our dream turns into a reality and we have some direct hit products in the market soon in next coming 5 years........

Pfizer: Will it still retain it position as gobal leader position!

During my B.pharma years I did my internship in Orgenon India, followed by Dey's medical, a good experience of working in a manufacturing plant where in you have GMP compliances. At that point of time Pfizer was taking over Warner pharma and then I started looking at this big companies history and series of merger and acquisitions. Both Novartis and Pfizer have a very hyper competitive environment; my view point has been developed after series of discussions with ex employs of both of this organization. Pfizer was also the first company where in I joined for marketing rep position in year 2001.

Pfizer blockbuster lipitor became off patent last year and this year Pfizer has good hope for Tofacitinib for which average sales is expected to be $2.2 Bn...But if we look at the company's pipeline they do not have extensive pipeline like some scientific global companies. So strategy going forward for Pfizer is to buy late stage molecules. Now time will say that late stage compound buy outs will help it to still maintain its global position or its going to lose its market to hyper aggressive competitor Novartis

Cloud computing!

Last time I wrote about how Pfizer is looking for options of using Cloud computing, the question which creeps in my mind every time i read about cloud is that if cloud is really the safest mode of storage. I was looking into the news which was published in the earlier part of this week, French giant Sanofi Aventis has gone for options of cloud computing for its clinical datasets and data management.


Already more than 25 companies in and around the globe have gone for cloud computing as data storage option but is it going to the most safest option for the Pharma companies, it’s a food for thought......and if the companies are looking for options of managing their clinical trial update, should they believe that there data in cloud is really safe?

Biotech....still has bright future?

2005 to 2008 we observed the largest number of deals in Biotechnology front, but after the recession there were very less number of deals, acquisition and partnership in this front, but analyst are still having the hope that 2013 we will have more number of deals in the Biotechnology front...As there is a lot of speculation that by 2020 the market for biologics in expected to be 60 Billion USD and the Biosimilar will capture market of more than $6 Billion. We need to see....last week we heard that Amgen has gone ahead to start with a new biotech startup and Novartis like its competitors in establishing its Biological unit in South Asia...

As last year J&J, Roche have already gone ahead to form their base, after china, Singapore as biotech hub, will India become the next biotech hub going forward?

But will this Biotech boom exist in Asia for long as it has started fading away from its sunshine in US and Europe?

New Drug Technologies!

Though at this point of time I am not doing any work related to my core expertise in which I had spent 4 years of my initial days......what is fascinating me now a days is that Bispecific and Antibody- Drug conjugates are the talk of the town, there are so many partnership deals happening in this space and we need to just see if Roche with its first Antoibody drug conjugate TDM1 will make the difference and will there be shift in the SOC. Roche with its correct strategies in place has monopolized the market and for the next 15-20 years secured its position in the space. Sometime I feel like going back to Research and start working again with some new technologies.

Bayer with its new move! ........Roche whats its next steps?

I have always been fascinated with the diagnostic industry as I have worked on many projects related to it....Bayer as a company is the name I remember from my childhood days as we used to use a lot of Baygon spray at our home in tropical islands of Andaman. After joining the KPO industry in 2007, I have been keeping a track of Bayer in general with regards to its Diagnostic portfolio, Bayer used to sell its blood glucose meters along with J&J and Roche who are also one of the major players in the segment of continuous and other blood sugar diagnosis systems.....but yesterday there was a news that it is going to discontinue any advances in the current portfolio and has shifted its focus on Companion diagnostic for oncology by forming an alliance with Qiagen....this year we had two more major events in this companion diagnostic segment, Roche has released its press release for its interest in companion diagnostic for Breast cancer and further BMS went ahead for alliance with Life tech for companion diagnostics in Oncology......Both BMS and Bayer are moving into the space but what we have to look for if Roche will only restrict itself with companion diagnostics for Breast cancer or it will further expand into other Oncology indications???


Roche as a science driven company, has a good hold in both blood sugar diagnosis system and now will eventually try to have a monopoly in companion diagnostics......what we have to see if J&J joins the race by partnering with Agilent or will continue with its own program which it started in 2011 or some other big fish going to join the race pretty soon?

Merck Millipore Price Hikes!!!

Today I was looking at this news from Merck Millipore that they are going to increase the price for their Biopharmaceutical products, similar ways we need to see if other bigger players such as Pall, GE (Amersham) and small scale players in Indian market like MDI are going to increase their price??


If the price increase is happening then we might see increase is the pilot to production scale for both biologics and biosimilars, is the common man pocket going to be effected more?????? As companies might increase the cost of products as basic production costs will increase......

Many questions are creeping into my grey cells...........

FDA on social media path

My client knows that I am great fan of social media and like to exploit it to full potential, as I am travelling for sometime I am not able to jot down much in the blog, Last Friday she sent me an development on FDA developing more social media guidance for development of efforts related to advertising and promotion, I was happy to know that FDA is also going with the pace of Pharma world in terms of web promotions, I hope EMA will also adopt social media approaches. This blog update is dedicated to my beautiful client who always challenges me with new updates and makes me aware of all updates about social media

Quintiles Story!

Quintiles is one of the most aggressive CRO in the world, I was impressed by its India strategy , when  it entered Indian market with a bang in 2001 and within some years had grown to more than 100 times in Indian operations compared to other CRO’s who later came and opened their operations in India beside local players, earlier it had services related from pre clinical to post marketing trials, but some 5-6 years back it sold its preclinical operations and then later diversified itself into genomic studies and recently with it has diversified itself as sole partners from genomic studies to clinical to regulatory filing.

It has strong team of more than 100 people in New York which caters to its overall strategic decisions and other portfolio diversification. If I look into their strategy of expansion into countries around the world, rather than forming very big alliances it opened its shop for business on its own and has been the pioneer or the early entrants in all the major emerging markets. In Russian federation though it formed JV and then further buy out

Earlier it was public company which became private after some years, as the new CEO has joined industry analysts believe that it will go public....we need to watch if it’s going to be a public company.....

"I view the fact that they have a new CEO now as potentially a sign that they're preparing their next leg of growth or next strategy, which could include an IPO," Moody's analyst Jessica Gladstone told Bloomberg. "An IPO could also be a way to reduce leverage and an exit strategy for the owners."

Read more: 

Please Click Here  

PS: I have been watching Quintiles for more then 5-6 years from the time I have joined consultancy industry thus these are my viewpoints

Pharma consolidation.................

The Global Pharma industry is undergoing huge challenges in terms of innovation and product development, as the federal agencies are decreasing their allocation for R&D and the only option left for the big pharma daddy's is to go for consolidation and thus further creating non-profit organization, which will be in place to accelerate the development of new medicines. Last decade only we had seen TAP alliance (Takeda and Abbott) which had success story of its own. Now the top ten pharmaceutical companies like Abbott, AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly and Company, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Genentech a member of the Roche Group, and Sanofi are consolidating their activity to identify and solve common drug development challenges with the end goals of improving the quality of life by developing novel drugs acting on Novel pathways. We Still have a ray of hope that there will be new drugs which will help us to live better life by fighting in and out with any sort of disease 

http://www.fiercebiotech.com/press-releases/ten-pharmaceutical-companies-unite-accelerate-development-new-medicines

Cloud computing....next thing after social media.......

Social media is the buzz of the town, every company is having some or the other social media site and now they are coming up with gaming, next in the series is Cloud computing application where in companies are trying to implement and configure their IT systems for managing their supply chain, Pfizer has chosen the path for cloud computing, we hope to see the Big Pharma using cloud computing application for their over all operations going forward

Emerging markets new gate away for Medical devices!

Some years back I was doing research on emerging market based medical devices companies. From the early 90's I have seen a trend that Top 10 medical devices companies have been opening their shop, initially the R&Ds focus was to support the global R&D in terms of software and technology development, but then these companies shifted their strategies on making devices and software for emerging markets, whether its Philips innovation in china or GE with their devices for the Indian market. Medtronic also ventured into the race by plan of an R&D in China, and hope that it comes out with some innovation for emerging market

Social Media Bug........

Sanofi eyes diabetics with social media

In the past two weeks I have seen two news releases regarding Big Pharma like Bayer and Sanofi going for social media services to know their target audience with metabolic disease Diabetes.

Both the German and the French drug maker have found the social media as a very important tool and have found that social media serves as a useful windows into people perception which includes the patients, physicians, regulators, Kol's and the payers  

As the competition intensifies I hope social media will be able to create wonders for Pharma as it has lead to change in scenario in FMCG market segment

Gilead product life cycle extension Strategy..........

Last time I had refereed to interest of Merck in expanding its HIV portfolio and how difficult it will be for Merck to grown in this specific segment, I feel now the competition will be more tough as some 4 days back Gilead Sciences announced that it had entered into agreement for Collaboration on promoting access to high quality generic version of Gilead HIV medicine emtricitabine (FTC), and also its fixed dose in developing countries with Mylan labs (Hyderabad), Ranbaxy (Gurgaon) and Stride Acrolab (Bangalore)

Under the said agreement Gilead will provide technology transfer to these giants and further funding for process improvements to reduce overall manufacturing cost......Gilead has now safely positioned it in the high margin segment and low price strategy segment......Now Cipla will have difficulty in growing in the said specific HIV indication per say........Real good strategy of safeguarding its monopoly 

Europe- New Regulatory guidelines!

From my B. pharmacy days i used to follow FDA and their guidelines but America has to learn many things from the Europeans in terms of regulatory guidelines recently for which there is lot of discussion happening in NICE front for new regulatory development, where in Macro level involvement of specific groups have been initiated for decision making for approval of drugs, there is lot to learn from NHS (National health services) and NICE UK. Will it be possible in India to implement these all regulations?

Generics?????

Generics have been eating our pie of revenue is the buzz following everywhere in Social media by the big players, whether its BMS and Astra, Astra at this point is in pretty bad shape as a giant which BMS was there 10 years back, BMS recovered with strategic partnership and alliances but what about Astra will it be able to cope?

These Big Pharma knew that generics will one or the other day will eat their pie of revenue and the best way to stop them is by making stringent regulations for sales and promotion.......

Astra should have thought beforehand about all this when it was making strategic blunders over the last three years ??????

After the generics and counterfeits ......it’s time for biosimilars to eat the revenue of big players  

Merck-Will this strategy help???

Today one of the top line news is that Merck and company is expanding in HIV arena, by signing two licensing agreements for investigational drug candidates. One deal is with Chimerix, based in Research Triangle Park, NC, and the other is with Yamasa of Choshi, Japan. With respect to its own portfolio Merck is also planning to advance an internally developed HIV candidate, MK-1439, which is into a Phase IIb trial. The question which is bugging my mind is that will Merck be able to penetrate the market which is majorly monopolized by Gilead for more than decade and if it is thinking of penetrating to the emerging markets, then will it be able to displace the stiff competition from companies like Cipla who have been playing the low price game for more than 3 decades? Food for thought ………..

Regulatory issues!

For past many months there has been issues related GMP production whether it’s Roche, Sanofi and Hospira and the issue was cGMP compliance in manufacturing. For Roche the issue was API production in their API manufacturing in North carolina, US and later Sanofi with their TB drug production in Canada. Why is that developed nations facing the CGMP issues as their regulatory bodies are the most stringent ones in the world?What should be the next steps for this company, third party manufacturing of active API's and products ?

Social Media Bug in Pharma!

Social media in some years has become a hot topic or rather then talk of the town, In FMCG scenario it has worked wonders and made some old products come back into shelf after consumer's persuasion. But I feel for Pharma there is an overall different story. Pfizer had closely watched effort for patient recruitment for clinical trials, One year after launching its so-called clinical-trial-in-a-box.

Pfizer is planning to discontinue enrollment in the first such study that was designed to allow the patients to participate from home by using computers and smart phones rather going back to hospital or doctor's office for medicines and after check-ups. While this effort created lot of Buzz in the virtual world but the drug maker was not able to pursue the patients to come up front to participate in trial, which was for testing the Detrol overactive bladder drug.

Time will say Social media success in Pharma and biopharma sector?

Pharma consolidation!

Good Morning Bangalore!.....India.......i have started loving Bangalore because of many things but majorly because of its climate and good Volvo services :)

Last to last week when Astra zenaca CEO stepped down after series of failures in strategic decisions...there were humors that GSK in eyeing on Astra, Both of then are Europe based companies and if this merger happens, it will help GSK to penetrate Europe and access to R&D in APAC region.......I assume that after 10 years all the Top 20 to 30 companies will be subsidiary of the Top 10 and i am just here to watch the consolidation of the Pharma industry......Might be case that Novartis mights increse its stakes in Roche and might even make it as its Biological subsidiary.......We never know what will be the consequences......but the shrinkage and consolidation of Pharma across the globe has started........

Turkey the next land of oppurtunity!

From the beginning of this year my life has been a roller coaster ride, leaving the hectic life, what I found is Bangalore is better compared to my life in Delhi. From last month I have been looking at a different trend, I started reading about Big pharma investment in emerging markets, what i am looking at is many of the big pharma's in the last 2-3 years have started collaboration with the Turkish companies or rather buying them out,  and some for instance like out of the major top 20, Novartis last month announced that it is going to start its R&D in Turkey and today’s latest news is Amgen bought 95% stakes Turkish Drug maker Mustafa Nevzat for $700 Million. After china being the favorite destination in Asia for big pharma’s emerging market strategy, I feel that likewise Turkey is becoming key destination for penetration into North Africa and middle east emerging market strategy for Big pharma. Amgen of course with this deal has become part of large pharma with generic arm and what I believe that in coming 6-7 years will promote its biosimilar arm through the generic divisions which it will perhaps expand from turkey to other parts of Europe, as from olden days (Biblical era) Turkey was gateway to both Europe, Africa and Asia…………