The pharma industry has been in a state of constant flux for a very long time. I can recall intense discussions at the turn of the Millennium, when we debated how the industry could survive the demise of the blockbuster drug model amidst the rise of generics... yes it still prevails.
The quirkiest issue I have observed with pharma, over the years, is that their leading firms like to outsource all the high-value work, such as contract manufacturing, drug discovery and R&D, while keeping the back office stuff inhouse, namely IT, HR and F&A. Pharma has been the weird stepchild of outsourcing - moving out the core, while retaining the non-core.
Fortunately, we have Barbra McGann, our Executive Vice President, Business Operations Research, to lead the charge in researching our first-ever Blueprint Report on Pharmaceuticals Industry-Specific BPO to delve into how our leading pharma are behaving, and how the service providers are performing to attend to their needs.
So let's ask Barbra to take few minutes to tell us about the report...
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Why produce this Blueprint report now, Barbra?
Barbra McGann is
Executive Vice President, Business Operations Research (click for bio)
There is some pretty spectacular and mind-boggling activity today in the pharmaceuticals industry, with the 3-D printing of pills, use of IBM Watson to cull through reams of data and help diagnose and personalize therapies, and edible devices that can transmit data and images. Behind the scenes, too, there are some significant changes underway that are also critical to helping this industry—enabling it to operate in a way that re-focuses on the patient, and helps pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical technology companies shorten trial times and accelerate time to market, increase medical adherence, reduce risk, and manage compliance. This operations support, having taken shape over the past two decades as the Pharma BPO industry, is on its way now to the As-a-Service Economy—with service providers bringing together industry and operations experts, digital technology and new operating models to collaborate with willing service buyers.
Two of the significant ways that pharmaceuticals companies “touch” consumers are in the R&D process and through sales and marketing (aka commercial services). The pharma BPO market in this Blueprint covers clinical data management services, safety management services, regulatory affairs support, and related sales and marketing—all activities that we recognize are part of a highly regulated, complex market in the midst of global
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Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), Buyers' Sourcing Best Practices, Healthcare and Outsourcing