DISRUPTING PHARMA—ONLY POLITICIANS CAN DO IT, HERE’S WHY AND HOW

Part III

THE PAINFULL ANALYSIS

It all started with Glaxo’s success inadvertently creating an illusion that fooled an entire industry, including itself.

As accidental illusionist, Glaxo did what magicians do. It deflected audience eyes away from the hand enabling the magic, onto the hand performing the show. The illusion was met with thunderous applause, as it unfolded before Big Pharma’s very eyes. The audience left, filled with the potential of repeating the magic for themselves.

Returning to the real world, the illusion can be explained using the lifecycle of a prescription medicine shown in the diagram below:

There were, and still are, three key milestone dates—patent award, regulatory approval and expiration of the patent; and two broad phases—product development and market exploitation. Glaxo’s success turned eyes towards the period between approval and expiry, the market exploitation phase, and then leftwards to the all important patent award.

The industry looked toward product development, a…