In a recent paper by Yali Friedman of the BiotechBlog, Yali looks at the growth of research capabilities in emerging economies such as India and China. With a substantial increase in the outsourcing of some of the more routine activities involved in pharmaceutical research and development (R&D), such as compound synthesis and preclinical toxicity tests, a question is whether research-based companies are shifting the volume and value of innovative science research to emerging economies.
This paper focuses on the location of innovation in the pharmaceutical sector, particularly in the United States as the world’s largest pharmaceutical market, comprising roughly 40% of the world’s pharmaceutical revenues. There were 1,400 first-year patents granted to drugs approved between 2001 and 2009.
Inventorship of these patents was concentrated in a small number of countries: 60% of inventors were from the United States, and 31.5% of inventors were from just seven other countries (United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, Sweden, France, Switzerland and Belgium).
So far, the emerging markets of India and China but the substantial time lag — often ~10 years or more between the initial discovery of a potential drug and its market approval — and the recent nature of the increase in investment in innovative research in such countries, this observation is not unexpected.
Read the results here: Location of pharmaceutical innovation – 2000-2009
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The research behind this article is very helpful in providing another indicator of diminishing pharmaceutical industry innovation. This decline would be even more dramatic (and probably will be in the near-term) when considering the increasingly challenging healthcare market expectations for what it takes to be considered “innovativeâ€.
The book Pharmaplasia™ describes these evolving new market expectations that include being able to prove that your “innovative†new product has clinically meaningful benefits over other therapeutic options, including generic drugs.
In a world looking for “get rich quick†returns on investment there is to little time and scarce funding interest for doing the discovery research that is needed to find truly innovative new drug treatments (beyond being patent eligible). Given the complexity of diseases we are trying to treat, Pharma needs to revitalize drug discovery research with a much deeper, more comprehensive understanding of human biology, pathophysiology, and molecular biology around the diseases being studied.
I don’t believe this is a geographic issue related to available scientific expertise nor the cost benefits of outsourcing to other countries but rather a matter of drug discovery research strategies.
Multidisciplinary teams of expertise with a comprehensive, disease specific focus will be needed to deliver these exciting new “innovative†treatments. Unfortunately, these type programs take more time, more collaboration, and a lot more money earlier in the research process than Pharma’s traditional “tweaking†of molecules and the “hit and miss†mentality of matching compounds and targets.
The study in this article on pharmaceutical innovation will be much more difficult as the definition of innovative evolves from patented to market viability (acceptance as innovative). http://www.PharmaReform.com
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Astella Pharmaceutical is extremely innovative, and is Japan’s second largest pharmaceutical company and ranked within the top 20 in the global market.
Thanks, this is a good article, keep up the good work. How about more articles about property and health.