Abstract
Pharmaceutical companies have recently seen many new product launches fall far short of expectations. In a recent paper, Bain & Company consultants queried a number of senior executives with successful product launch experience. They found that successful product launches identified and effectively communicated clinical and non-clinical benefits. Going beyond Key Opinion Leaders, successful launches involved day-to-day prescribing physicians, resulting in these physicians becoming practicing advocates for the new drug. A successful product launch also goes well beyond clinical trial data. Post-launch, Phase IV data and real world evidence based on patient experience after the drug is launched, is now often integrated into a pharmaceutical company’s marketing efforts (Rafael Natanek et al., How to make your drug launch a success, In Vivo, October 16, 2017).
We would be remiss if we did not comment on arguably the most pressing public policy issue in healthcare in the USA – The Opioid Crisis. The public policy issue that has come to the fore is the role of pharmaceutical distributors and wholesalers in supplying opioids to doctors and pharmacies. Of particular note is the U.S. Justice Department's recent settlement with McKesson, a large pharmaceutical wholesaler – based on evidence pertaining to suspicious orders and shipments of opioids. Per the settlement, McKesson will operate under a compliance agreement that will be overseen by an independent monitor (Erika Fry, As America’s opioid crisis spirals, giant drug distributor McKesson is feeling the pain, Fortune, June 13, 2017). Furthermore, it has been reported that the cities of Birmingham, Alabama and Cincinnati, Ohio filed lawsuits against the three largest pharmaceutical wholesalers for allegedly pushing through large and frequent orders of opioids (Alex Kacik, Pharma supply chain ramps up technology to battle opioid epidemic, Modern Healthcare, September 16, 2017). And an article in a recent issue of Businessweek detailed the emergence of a noted plaintiff’s lawyer on this issue (Esme Deprez and Paul Barrett, The lawyer who beat big tobacco takes on the opioid industry, Bloomberg Businessweek, October 9, 2017).
So, what is the role of pharmaceutical distributors in the opioid epidemic in the United States? There is remarkably little marketing literature on pharmaceutical wholesaling. We believe this merits serious attention by researchers.
We encourage readers of our
Your Editors:
Peter Dumovic
William Trombetta