FIND IT, FILE IT, FLOG IT: PHARMA’S CRIPPLING ADDICTION AND HOW TO CURE IT
Chapter 7, Part 1: Harsh Realities For Big Pharma And The Industry Unearthed
CHAPTER 7, Part 1: Harsh Realities For Big Pharma And The Industry Unearthed
Without further ado, we get to the overarching harsh reality with the aid of another metaphor.
A Helpful Metaphor
“Big Pharma was crippled by a debilitating addiction many years ago. As with any addiction, lifestyle choices are at the center of the problem. For the addictive gambler, the roots of their demise lie in early success. Seduced by the rush of easy money, it becomes a way of life. The gambler doesn’t feel the need to go out and work, preferring instead to focus on beating the odds.
Nothing is as important as the next win, and possessions and relationships often are discarded in order to fuel the habit. By the time the gambler realizes the problem, it is all too late: no home, no family, and few friends, little money, and no prospect of being able to hold down a job.”
In terms of the metaphor, the Triple F lifestyle yielded mega returns in the early days. The bank of molecule “chips” was duly replenished and systematically placed on the roulette wheel of regulatory review, waiting for that fateful black ball to drop, hopefully resulting in an approval from the regulators and mega returns.
When the odds began to go against it, facilities and people were cast out to conserve the stash in the bank. As the odds continued to favor the house, resources were funneled into FIND IT and FLOG IT.
FILE IT increasingly became the poor relation, taken for granted as the necessary evil to be overcome on the road to life in the sun.
This, of course, has been the fatal mistake. FILE IT covers the entire product-development cycle, from conceptualization to commercialization. The early successes in Pharma struck the industry blind to the true nature of what it was doing. The industry is still blind to it. That is why this is the overriding harsh reality. The industry and Big Pharma, in particular, is an addict in denial, still placing its bets on the regulatory roulette wheel.
This may seem an extreme assessment, and in some ways it is because Big Pharma companies are still relatively rich. However, the industry’s key players do exhibit many of the characteristics of the gambler: an obsession with chasing the big win (blockbusters); low-level engagement in key relationships (for example, patients, doctors, contractors, regulators, and distributors); divestment of life possessions to fund the stake and hedge the uncertainty (mass, tactical outsourcing, and abandonment of out-of-patent products); and a mind-set embedded in those early years of success, as an alternative to the hard yards of working for a living.
If we take the metaphor at face value, things don’t look good for Big Pharma companies, as habits of a lifetime die hard. Often, addiction is a slow downward spiral into the gutter. Some would argue that is the trajectory before us, the logical conclusion of a lifetime of neglect. It would be perfectly reasonable to see it that way, given what we now know [note from Hedley - we know an awful lot more now!].
If the addict were to accept its plight, acknowledge the problem, and seek rehabilitation, there would be further harsh realities to face that stem from the lifetime of addiction. These need to be unearthed to appreciate the scope of the journey ahead, if it is to be one of recovery. We explore them in the remainder of this chapter.
Big Pharma needs a science lesson
Science is at the core of the industry—the lion’s roar. On that front is a two-part lesson.
First, in the commercial world, science is impotent if not partnered with the translational methods in the world of engineering. Together, they travel from a good idea to a product in the hands of end users.
Second, far too little science is applied in the early stage of FILE IT. I will explain more because I suspect industry stalwarts will be up in arms at this point.