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European Pharmaceutical Contractor
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The majority of existing drug patents, worth around US$100 billion, will expire before 2010 and the race is on to fill the emptying pipeline for new products. While it can cost a major pharmaceutical company up to $1 billion to get a single drug to market, mounting generic competition has become increasingly efficient, typically taking 70 per cent of sales from the drug's originating company. The Financial Times recently reported that eight of the 15 leading pharmaceutical companies had failed to obtain regulatory approval to market a single new drug in the last year. In addition, it can take up to seven years from the time a drug is patented to reach the market, which can leave less than 75 per cent of the length of the patent time to actually sell the drug. Improving operational efficiency and, in particular, shortening operational cycle time in the manufacturing process, is crucial to capitalise on remaining patent time and maintain market share.
In the manufacturing context, competitive advantage through cycle time (CT) reduction is deliverable from inventory reduction through improved span of control, to staffing and general resource optimisation. Effective supply chain management in particular offers rich opportunities to realise major gains.
Holistic Approach
Prior to implementation, any CT reduction plan requires a company to consider and address a wide range of variables (see Figure 1). CT itself is helpfully defined, based on Little's Law, as a function of work in process (see Figure 2 ).
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Industry Events |
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4th Annual Patient Recruitment and Retention in Clinical Trials
13-15 October 2008, Amsterdam
Patient recruitment
is now consuming thirty percent of clinical trial time - more time than any
other clinical trial activity - and almost half of all trial delays result from
patient recruitment problems.
As the
recruiting culture becomes more sophisticated and the forces affecting patient
enrollment grow more numerous and complex, pharmaceutical companies are
striving to discover new strategies to facilitate enrollment in clinical
trials.
With
increasing industry pressure to develop, test and market greater numbers of new
drugs faster, pharmaceutical companies need to perform clinical trials as
quickly as possible. Inefficient patient recruitment processes is a formidable
barrier to pharmaceutical companies' success in launching new products.
Improving the patient recruitment process is imperative to avoid wasted
investments and eliminate costly delays in bringing new drugs to market --
today and even more so in the not-so-distant future. Improved patient
recruitment presents one of the largest opportunities for pharmaceutical
companies to eliminate delays in clinical trials, thereby making it possible to
reduce time to market. With patent time limits and large overheads
meaning that any delays in the development timeline can be disastrous, a good
understanding of how to successfully recruit patients for trials is vital for
any company looking to succeed.
More info >> |
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News and Press Releases |
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MipTec, October 14 – 16, 2008, Switzerland
MipTec about to take off by joining forces between Life Sciences Week, ALL-SystemsX.ch-Day, & Jobvector.com
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