Biotechnology Management

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Drug Pricing Strategies in India
2008-02-14 09:49:00
1. Cost-based pricing: The India n cabinet ministry proposed to control the prices of 354 essential medicines by taking into account their cost of production. Today 1/4th of Rs. 23,000 crores domestic pharma market is controlled. The ministry has not accepted the industry’s offer to lower the current prices of essential drugs by 5-10%, because the revised policy will prevent companies escaping price control by adding new ingredients to drugs and going out of the essential drugs list. Without such measures, drug makers may add vitamins and other unnecessary components, leading to risky irrational combinations besides defeating the purpose of price control. The essential therapeutic drugs constitute the painkillers, antibiotics, psychotic drugs, cancer and HIV drugs. The companies making essential drugs are given 150% margin of production cost, whereas price controlled drugs are given 100% margin for the post manufacturing expenses. 2. Value-based pricing: Biotech indus...
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Price Control of Biotech Drugs: Potential Impact on the Biopharma Industry
2008-01-12 17:36:00
Life saving, less expensive biotech drugs, isn’t a good deal for consumers? The large public outcry or critics about the biopharmaceutical drugs are very expensive and that the biopharma industry is so greedy in making profits. The prices are so high because of the labour intensive, long term process involved, from the hypothesis that a drug might work to actually getting it through the testing and approval and getting it on the market. It takes a lot of money to do that, and of course the drug companies do make a lot of money, but it’s a win-win situation, where they make a lot of money and we get these fantastic life saving drugs. The advancements that are being made are absolutely astonishing. Do we really want to kill the goose that lays golden eggs by putting in price controls? There has to be some incentives for the investors and the biopharmaceutical companies. Again, although a good idea, the drug companies invest so heavily on bringing a drug to market, ideally th...
More About: Drugs , Industry , Price , Control

Biotechnology Management: The science and the business
2007-12-25 19:08:00
There are so many definitions of biotechnology exists today that we do not feel inclined to add to them. Not that the definitions are wrong but they do not necessarily convey the very realistic ideas of the subject. Biotechnology is no more just an innovative academic activity, but rather an intense industrial and commercial involvement. This monograph is an attempt to provide you with a variety of issues, their relative importance and their interrelatedness in managing commercial biotechnology. By understanding the factors influencing biotechnology companies it is possible to select opportunities and position for a rewarding career. Examining existing biotechnology firms can reveal desirable credentials for careers. Many companies list the academic qualifications of their senior management. Job postings also describe necessary qualifications for specific positions. The key to a career in biotechnology, regardless of educational background or expertise, is to appreciate the unique c...
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Crisis Management - A lesson to learn in Corporate Communication
2007-12-03 07:00:00
All businesses mess-up on occasion What to do when it (all) goes wrong? Growing Up Is Hard to Do Crisis need not strike a company purely as a result of its own negligence or misadventure.Often, a situation is created which cannot be blamed on the company - but the company finds out pretty quickly that it takes a huge amount of blame to hit the ball in its response. Clearing the Hurdles & Accelerating the Business High-profile incidents in the bio/pharmaceutical industry Product integrity is constantly challenged, from patent infringement to counterfeits to life-threatening side effects during first-in-human clinical trials. Each step of the product life cycle, from idea inception to post-marketing surveillance and product retirement, raises potential legal, commercial, financial and ethical risks. Product protection risks should be managed through an anticipatory, proactive approach employing mechanisms found to be successful in monitoring, controlling, and...
More About: Communication , Management , Corporate , Learn , Lesson

Crisis Management –Technology competent, product license terminated Biote
2007-11-18 17:22:00
There are many examples to quote for the major challenge faced by the world’s most successful as well as start-up biotech companies: how to overcome the crisis of technologically competent, product license terminated situation of biotech companies. The question is with little or no money situation, how to generate the sufficient clinical data for the re-evaluation of the drug by the regulatory bodies and how to stay alive until the supporting clinical data is generated! Here, the three best possible options are addressed to overcome this situation and you are welcome to add more to it! The ‘Tripod’ business model offers a solution:1. Seek government funding for the better development of the drug and the technology.If the public health is a major concern, government would most likely to take initiative to support funding a clinical programme and the associated technology development with the industry in collaboration. This way the company can pursue the government agenc...
More About: Technology , Management , Product , Crisis , License

Risk-reduced cost management practices (No. 5)
2007-11-03 11:34:00
5. Drug-Device hybrid modelThe biotech investments are volatile in nature considering the probability that the drug would fail during clinical trials phase II or III, after much of the time and money has been spent. It is characterized by high risk, in terms of capital commitment and probability of success, and high reward, in terms of profit potential and exit scenarios.For example, in India, the diabetic drug insulin is manufactured by Torrent Pharmaceuticals, under licence from Novo Nordisk India, and distributed by Abbott India verses the blood glucose measuring device called ‘AccuCheck’ is manufactured and marketed by Roche diagnostics alone. In this scenario, although the cost or risk is reduced the profit is also shared.The best way to describe the drug-device hybrid is to look at one of the most successful examples set forth by Johnson & Johnson, who created the market opportunity for the drug coated stents used in the coronary artery diseases. As a result, start-up ...
More About: Management , Cost , Risk

Biotechnology in India: Public-Private Partnerships
2007-10-31 06:05:00
My recent article on 'Biotechnology in India : Public -Private Partnerships' has been accepted by the Journal of Commercial Biotechnology, published from UK. Please take a look at the abstract below.Abstract The purpose of the study being a survey of public sector- private industry collaborations of the biotechnology sector in India, an organizational and functional overview of this sector was needed. Therefore, rather than studying a hypothetical biotechnology sector in India, the area of this work confined to study the public-private partnerships (PPP) that are occurring in India in the area of modern biotechnology. The Indian Government has been playing an important role in the development of biotechnology sector from the very beginning and there are large numbers of R&D institutions (Scientific, Medical, Industrial and Agricultural) which have been set up by the Government during the past two-three decades. Indian Biotechnology industry is advancing towards new heights in ...

Risk-reduced cost management practices (No. 4)
2007-10-29 08:52:00
4. Outsourcing (CROs) While most attention is paid for reducing the risk and the cost of drug development, from the clinical perspective, contract research organizations (CROs), in order to manage successfully require flexible and efficient management team. Considering the managerial issues, the ‘Monitor closely, Work closely’ team approach proves to be the most accepted across the globe. The basic principle followed by the FIPCOs is certainly based on ‘Inspect, what you expect’ formula. In order to minimize the cost, what needs to be delivered needs to be expected early in the developmental pipeline. Issues like, the increasing attrition rate in CROs, often indicate that the people you end up with are not the people who started the work. The most important thing for any bio/pharma company is to have their communication channels well equipped in terms of rules and regulations that needs to be followed. The middle level product manages required to be rightly placed at the...
More About: Management , Cost , Risk

Risk-reduced cost management practices (No. 3)
2007-10-20 12:21:00
3. Consumer-driven models Consumer-driven healthcare is all about inspiring the consumers to choose and use. More like the philosophical and practical assessment mechanism, where one consumer might choose to buy a fully loaded luxury car verses the consumer, who would prefer a compact car model to his or her everyday basic need. Similarly, in the healthcare industry, one patient might opt for a more expensive drug or treatment that provides better quality of life compared to the one opting for an inexpensive treatment that offers adequate health benefit. Spiraling healthcare costs and consumer demand for greater flexibility are the reasons why many biotech companies are moving to consumer-driven healthcare system, which is defined as a system where consumers, not the company or insurance provider, determine how and where to spend their healthcare allotments. The only obstacle foresees is the consumer education, if the average consumer is not well informed regarding the health...
More About: Management , Cost , Risk

Risk-reduced cost management practices (No. 2)
2007-10-20 12:17:00
2. Risk -free clinical trials Taking the risk out of the clinical trials has been tried successfully by companies like Avalon by developing a fully-integrated technology platform called AvalonRx in partnerships with Merck, MedImmune, ChemDiv, Medarex, and Novartis which utilize a proprietary drug discovery and development platform. It is based on large-scale biomarker identification and monitoring, to discover and develop therapeutics for pathways that have historically been characterized as "undruggable”. Using biomarker’s biochemical features or facets to measure the progress of a disease or the effects of treatment as applied in DNA Sequencing and fragment analysis. Biomarkers can be used to assist clinicians in disease assessment or researchers in their discovery efforts, thus reducing the cost of conducting clinical trials.
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Risk-reduced cost management practices in biotechnology companies
2007-10-19 06:51:00
Looking at the most successful large biotech companies like Amgen, Biogen or Genentech, and their FIPCO (Fully integrated bio/pharmaceutical company) model, which has the ability to discover, develop, manufacture and market their own drug; it is evident that the risk-reduced cost management practices plays a significant role in retaining the majority of profits for the company. The newly start-up biotech companies strive for survival in today’s competitive environment. It is a general impression that, as we discover more about the genome, we are closer to finding the causes and treatments for the life-threatening diseases. On the contrary, since we do not know that yet; probably more time-span will be required to arrive at a time and cost-effective treatment for a disease. Rising R&D costs and falling numbers of marketing approvals has been the subject of growing attention. To improve the overall probability of success, there is a growing positive perception within the biotec...
More About: Companies , Management , Biotechnology , Cost , Risk

A View from the Top
2007-10-16 05:05:00
Managing biotechnology companies successfully is primarily about following the best management practices like Cost Management, Crisis Management, Quality Management, Strategic Alliance Management, and Intellectual Property Management.In this series, we'll discuss and analyze the different scenarios faced or handled by the biotechnology companies.Biotechnology management could also be divided into equally important specialized areas like (without any specific order): Sales/marketing management of biopharmaceuticals, Human resource management, Financing/venture capital funding management, and International business management in biotechnology companies.The intension is to provide a treat or to define a difference to the life sciences' graduates either aspiring or undertaking a professional course in biotechnology management.So, Welcome on-board guys!
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A Me-Too Career Option
2007-10-15 06:39:00
(What is it? Why there is a need? Who needs it? How to accomplish? ) In the year 2000, when I completed PhD in biotechnology with the specialization in molecular biology, even sky was not the limit. I enjoyed working with the best biotechnology institutes in India and aboard. Being a molecular biologist, most of my work was limited to molecular neurobiology or bacteriology. Although everyone is fascinated by the glamour biotechnology research and want a bite of the sweet pie, looks like today, the life sciences graduates have limited career opportunities. Also, limited efforts have been made by different job portals to collect employment statistics in the biotechnology management areas, in particular. However, initiatives from the government agencies and educational institutes and undoubtedly from the web-career sections of biotech/pharma companies are underway to address this and to establish a measurement framework for tomorrow’s industry needs. Looking at the scarcity of ...
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