Prescription for Change a Survey of Pharmaceuticals 1 Prescription for Change a List of Sources Can Be Found Online

The pharmaceutical industry is ailing. Shereen El Feki takes its pulse and predicts a partial recovery On the face of it, Big Pharma rms are in a business to die for. Populations in rich countriessand increasingly developing ones toooare getting older, and many people suer from chronic conditions. Global drug sales have almost doubled since 1997, and will rise to more than $700 billion by 2008. By the standards of other industries, most big pharmaceutical companies are hugely prootable: operating margins are more than 25%, against 15% or so for consumer goods. Tales of woe But behind the healthy glow, a more worrying picture emerges. In the past few years large drug companies have had trouble getting new drugs out of their pipelines and into the market. At the same time, several high-proole medicines have been withdrawn because of safety concerns. Recently a whole group of drugs, anti-innam-matory medicines both old and new, have run into trouble. And several rms have suered manufacturing problems. Moreover, many so-called block-busterr drugssthose with more than $1 billion in global annual salesshave had their patents, and their market share, challenged by cheaper generic rivals. Over the next ve years, a record $70 billion-worth of drugs will face generic competition in America alone. Drug-company sales, which increased by 10-15% a year for most of the 1990s, have slowed to single-digit growth. As a result, investors have shifted A S A boy in the 1930s, your correspon-dent's father lived in fear of pneumo-coccal pneumonia. With good reason: one of his young friends had died of it. It caused coughing, chills and fever, leading to a crisis in which the patient either suddenly expired or miraculously recovered. Today, there are drugs to tip the balance in favour of survival, and a vaccine to prevent the disease altogether. But the pharmaceutical industry, which has been responsible for bringing such drugs to the market, is passing through its own crisis. Research and development (R&D) is spluttering , earnings have weakened, its public image is tarnished. This survey will examine the global drug industry, probe some of the patient's sorer spots and ooer a diagnosis. Treatment is far trickier, but the following pages will suggest ways in which all those with an interest in its successpill-makers and pill-takersscan hasten the recovery. The global pharmaceutical industry consists of thousands of companies, including biotech rms, generic drugmakers, contract research organisations, wholesalers and …