Product Stewardship

Ria Barari

Product Stewardship in the Pharmaceutical Industry

During the life cycle of a drug, there are several participants of the pharmaceutical industry who share the responsibility for the impacts the product will have on those involved in the production, use, and end-of-life management of the drug. Challenges, such as responsible planning and management of resources, can greatly influence the end result and the degree of the party’s responsibility. In the marketing cases that we evaluated this semester, there were several key takeaways and lessons that will be meaningful to a pharmaceutical industry executive.

Lesson #1: You must market the right drug to the right people in the right way.

In the Forecasting Denosumab case, Amgen has made a few decisions that hurt its competitiveness in the marketplace. As a leading biotechnology company, Amgen surprisingly went outside of the usual specialty markets, such as oncology, and into mass markets already saturated by other big pharmas with the introduction of its osteoporosis drug, Denosumab. Merck’s Fosamax, a bisphosphonate, was the most widely used drug by osteoporosis patients in 2010 and significant competition for Amgen. Although Denosumab’s mechanism actually blocks the formation of bone density and is only 2 injections a year, whereas Fosamax only slows down the progression and must be taken orally every week, Denosumab is still the costlier option. In this economic climate and with the numerous generic alternatives in the osteoporosis market, an expensive injection seems pretty risky and analysts’ predictions of $2 or $5 billion in revenue is likely to be over ambitious. The large sales force that Amgen plans on hiring and training to reach primary care physicians is also going to cut into its revenue. It is going to be quite costly to win over the loyalty of primary care physicians and market this drug that will have to dethrone a list of competitors. Primary care physicians do not...