Is Big Pharma Ready to Meet the Challenges of Election Year 2020?

AUSTIN, Texas - Dec. 11, 2019 - PRLog -- The pharmaceutical industry is facing a wide range of challenges, including the changing market conditions for so-called blockbuster drugs, increased market penetration by generic drug makers, the risk of carcinogen contamination in common consumer drug prescriptions, potential changes in drug pricing regulations in the run-up to the 2020 election, and even market challenges and opportunities stemming from Britain leaving the European Union.

What's disrupting today's blockbuster drug development pipeline? For the pharmaceutical industry, it's all about the pipeline.

When things are working on all cylinders, it goes like this: pharma companies spend exorbitant amounts of money on research and development of drug candidates — many are expected to fail during clinical trials.

Pressure mounts on those few drugs in the pipeline that make it through the years-long approval process gauntlet — will they rise to the pantheon of "blockbuster" drugs?

The drug makers certainly hope so. In fact, many pharma execs bet their companies on a series of blockbuster drugs to provide the necessary billions of dollars in ROI earned over the life of their drug patents to recoup all their initial investment and to make enough profits to pay for the next round of drugs in the pipeline.

But is the classic era of the blockbuster drug over? Indeed, there's a concern that the rate of discovery of new blockbuster drugs has slowed down.

What seems to be happening now is that fewer, but more powerful "blockbuster" patent drugs are coming to market, including new miracle drugs offering the hope of life-changing cures for diseases such as liver cancer / Hepatitis C.

However, from a financial standpoint, things are different now. Unlike the famous blockbuster drugs of the past, many of today's new generation of blockbuster drugs often cure chronic diseases outright. However, this means drug makers have to recoup their investments with one course of a single treatment regimen, rather than over a lifetime of sales for each patient.

Adding to the financial challenges are increased drug development costs and the fact that many pharma giants are spending vast sums on acquisitions to add to their drug portfolios.

More and more chronic diseases can be cured, but who pays?

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