Chandler Chicco unveils market access unit
pharmafile | June 23, 2008 | News story | Medical Communications |Â Â Â
Chandler Chicco has launched a new business unit specifically aimed at smoothing the route to market for new products.
The agency's new business unit is called Brandtectonics Europe, and will operate as a specialist consultancy and has a ready-made client roster that includes Allergan, Boehringer Ingelheim, GSK and Merck Serono.
Formally launched this month, the consultancy has been up and running for five months, has seven staff and is headed up by Neil McGregor-Paterson, previously MD of Chandler Chicco Agency in London.
He said: "At Brandtechtonics we understand that market access is not a single hurdle. Market access is a challenge that tests brands throughout their life."
Fiona Hall, EU director of operations at CCC, added that Brandtectonics would be more than just a public affairs company for the pharma industry.
She says the agency will take a "more holistic" approach to market access, from clinical trials through to approvals, health technology appraisals and defence strategies at the end of a brand's life.
"We do undertake lobbying initiatives, however this is just one element of the services we provide," she said.
The agency will also target stakeholder groups, such as clinical trial investigators, regulators, doctors, patient groups and lawyers defending a brand from patent infringement by a generics company.
Cost controls designed by health services around the world to cap spiralling budgets and limit access to expensive medicines are among the key challenges identified by Brandtectonics.
"While the pharmaceutical industry are used to demonstrating the efficacy of their products, they are not as familiar with demonstrating cost-effectiveness or wider societal benefit of their therapies," Hall added. This is particularly true of bespoke biologics, expensive to develop and manufacture and often designed to meet a pressing need in a relatively small patient population.
The new agency will be available to help clinical trials recruit on time, collecting evidence from the patient community, the trial investigators and the wider market.
"We can help diagnose bottlenecks and hurdles in the clinical trial recruitment process, and provide tools for both patient education and investigator motivation that will enhance clinical trial recruitment, and position the brand most appropriately in preparation for its launch," explained Hall.
The agency will also advise pharma companies on the appraisal process itself.
"Bodies such as NICE have changed the landscape completely. Recently in the UK several cancer therapies have been approved for market but have had their market access blocked by these health technology appraisals," said Hall, citing recent comments by Thomas Lonngren, exec director of the EMEA, that a growing number of new drugs are likely to be approved but not reach patients because governments don't consider them cost effective.
Part of Brandtectonics' offering will be to help companies assess data and health economic arguments to make the best case possible for reimbursement.
