2016: A retrospective from the industry
pharmafile | February 2, 2017 | Feature | Business Services, Manufacturing and Production, Medical Communications, Research and Development, Sales and Marketing |
2016 was characterised by some of the biggest political shifts in recent times. We ask four major pharma figures for their thoughts on what the year meant for the industry, and what 2017 may bring next.
Loretto Callaghan, Country President, UK & Ireland, Novartis
This has been a year of strong growth for Novartis in the UK, although there have also been challenges. The Brexit vote has brought uncertainty for our industry, particularly on the regulation of medicines, clinical trial processes and around the movement of our people.
For Novartis, we have also been facing a significant patent expiration of one of our blockbuster medicines, Glivec. However, a time of change also presents significant opportunity: Theresa May has prioritised the development of a coherent industrial strategy, and has specifically identified pharmaceuticals as a key sector to this strategy – that is promising for our industry.
Our newly launched products, including Cosentyx and Entresto, have seen solid growth. We have a strong pipeline with a number of new data readouts, filings and regulatory decisions expected throughout 2017 and beyond. We also made significant strides building our digital capabilities and as an industry worked to increase understanding of our important collaborations with healthcare professionals and organisations, including disclosing the payments we make.
Moving into 2017, Novartis is looking at how we can shift our reimbursement models to focus on value and outcomes delivered: we want to be rewarded for the tangible health outcomes our products provide patients and we welcome the NHS to partner with us in this approach, making medicines accessible and healthcare more sustainable.
Cyril Titeux, VP Strategy and Organisation EMEA, Janssen
The continued and growing pace of innovation, especially in oncology, have brought and will bring a lot of hope to many patients. At the same time, giving patients access to the new treatment options increasingly raises concerns in terms of sustainability of the health care systems. At Janssen we constantly work with all stakeholders to implement innovative market access models that can ensure patient access while addressing stakeholders needs, especially regarding affordability and sustainability.
One of the most remarkable milestones was certainly bringing daratumumab to patients in Europe suffering from multiple myeloma, as this can bring new hope for many, even to the point that the word “cure” could potentially be used for multiple myeloma in the future.
I think 2017 will continue to bring innovations but also more discussion on how to keep this innovation model sustainable. How to guarantee both access to all patients and the continuation of the innovative research efforts and investments? This will involve a continued dialogue amongst all healthcare stakeholders including payers, authorities clinicians and patients. We understand that ensuring very good outcomes for patients and demonstrating real life value to payers and clinicians is absolutely key.
In that respect, we are open to experimenting innovative access models, for example linking treatment outcomes with revenues of some of our innovative medicines. In order for these pilots to be implemented, access to relevant data is obviously key, and should be a topic of discussion with health care systems across EU. Another of the pillars here is also maintaining trust between all players involved. With this in mind, the efforts taken by the industry in 2016 to disclose transfer of value between pharmaceutical companies and healthcare practitioners are a significant step forward.
Matt Regan, UK General Manager, AbbVie
Without a doubt, the result of the EU referendum and the decision of the British people to leave the EU will be seen as the defining moment of 2016 across many parts of British society.
This result adds significant uncertainty to the life sciences sector – which is a truly global industry – and it is very important that the Government now works hard to ensure that the UK remains a priority market for bio-pharma R&D, manufacturing and commercial investments. The government have reaffirmed their commitment to the life sciences industry, but these words needs to be translated into visible actions to ensure the adoption & uptake of the latest innovations that have the potential to improve patient outcomes in line with the best healthcare systems in the world.
2016 has been a very successful year for AbbVie where we have continued to make a significant contribution to advancing patient care in the UK with our patient-centric solutions. We have broadened our product offering with the availability of our all-oral, interferon-free hepatitis C regimen that has cured thousands of patients from HCV during 2016. We were also very proud to have secured an “Early Access to Medicines” status for our chronic lymphocytic leukaemia medicine, a first in any blood cancer for the scheme.
A lot of uncertainty currently exists and it is very important that the Government follows through on the very positive words about the life sciences industry being a “jewel in the crown” of the UK economy. However, some of the current NHS England/NICE consultations are extremely concerning and have the potential to re-write the way that medicines are assessed and funded in the future. We need commitment that cost-effective medicines will actually be used by the NHS to improve patient care; if this does not take place, it will be a huge missed opportunity for the NHS, but most importantly a missed opportunity for patients who depend on these innovative treatments to improve their quality of life.
Two big questions for the year ahead are around funding and the government willingness to follow through on their industrial strategy priorities. Will the government’s plan of flat funding for the next two years be realistic in the face of Trust deficits that are rising every quarter? How does the government square the stated goals of the Accelerated Access Review to improve the uptake of innovative medicines with the apparently contradictory NHS England/NICE proposals consultations?
AbbVie will remain highly engaged and committed to helping the Government to navigate these complex issues to help ensure that patients in the UK get access to innovative medicines in line with the access that patients get across mainland Europe.
Erik Nordkamp, Country Manager, Pfizer UK
Of course the Brexit vote was a significant event in 2016. No-one can predict at this stage what the final detail of the negotiation will be. But what is certain is that Theresa May and her Government have a golden opportunity to make life sciences the beating heart of an open-for-business, industrial strategy.
There have been challenges to overcome this year. Increasing pressure and demand on the health service has led to unwillingness to invest in new medicines. Our focus has been on trying to work with NHS England, NICE and government to find solutions so patients can access our medicines, whilst creating the right conditions for industry to thrive and develop future innovations here in the UK.
Industrial measures that encourage and support research cannot be divorced from a willingness to invest in the innovative new medicines created as a result. Scientific ambition must be matched by efforts to get new, innovative medicines to British patients; medicines that can change and save lives.
2016 was a year of great achievements with the launch of a new medicine, further advances in our pipeline, additional research collaborations with UK scientists and successful partnership programmes with the NHS. All of these milestones support our purpose of improving the lives of patients.
We’re proud to have been awarded UK Top Employer certification earlier in the year. One of our key priorities is to ensure we create the best environment for colleagues to thrive in the workplace. We also continued to invest in the next generation of scientists through actively supporting the National Apprenticeship programme, with over 30 apprentices working across our sites.
We also launched our ‘I am Science’ campaign in January 2016 –to celebrate scientific achievement and inspire future generations.
Our priority is to ensure that our medicines are available to patients when they need them. But we expect that in 2017 many of the same issues will exist in the reimbursement system as they did last year.
Putting our sector at the heart of the new industrial strategy could transform the UK’s health and wealth. With Government support and engagement, we can have the opportunity to unlock investment, make the NHS an engine for innovation and growth, and ensure patients have access to the medicines and treatments they need.
We all have a role to play in achieving that vision and we’re committed to playing our part. By re-setting the relationship between government and industry, and giving global pharma a seat at the table, we can help to find solutions to the challenges in the UK health system and attract further investment in R&D.
