Chapter 1: Big Pharma’s Crippling Addiction and How to Cure It
ABOUT THIS BOOK
1 ABOUT THIS BOOK
Why should you read this book?
You should read this book if you are an investor, executive, or lawyer in the industry. If you have been a professional working in drug research, development, commercial supply, finance, marketing, or all of the other disciplines operating in the sector, this book should find its way onto your shelf.
If you are a health-care professional, nurse, doctor, surgeon, medical auxiliary, for example, this book is for you. Most important, if you have ever been a patient, these pages should remain open to you.
If you are one of the above stakeholders in the pharmaceutical industry, there is much in this book for you. Investors are first on the list because they are likely to benefit most in terms of return on investment and risk reduction, while driving much-needed improvements.
Executives will sleep more soundly at night as they face the world with a newfound mission in life.
Lawyers will get tons more satisfaction from their fee-earning hours while earning a sizable crust.
Professionals in the industry will realize that they have been marching to the wrong beat and learn what’s needed to readjust their steps. They will become re-energized with prospects and opportunities they do not know exist.
Health-care professionals will learn how to bring companies developing pharmaceutical therapies into alignment with their needs, as they finally reconnect with the medicines they prescribe.
For patients, the ultimate benefactors of this book, there is so much to discover. The complexities of the pharmaceutical maze will be unearthed, the myths about the cost of drug development and time to market will be debunked, and a new set of insights will put patients, finally, in control of their own destinies, as receivers of medicine.
In summary, you are all in for a massive eye-opener—a peek into the inner workings of an industry in crisis, struggling to come to terms with errors of the past and predicaments of the present. You will learn about the industry’s gambling addiction of the early 1980s and discover the debilitating state of this gambler in denial.
It is not all doom and gloom, of course, but the prognosis is dire and the road to recovery is hard—very hard. Fundamental change is required if Pharma’s future is to turn the corner.