[Ip-health] Report on marketers and R&D

[Mike Palmedo]

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Today, marketers play an increasingly important role in guiding R&D to
fill product pipelines with the most commercially promising drug candidates.

<snip>

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040407/clw017_1.html

Press Release    Source: Cutting Edge Information

R&D-Commercialization Relationship Determines Early Development Success
Wednesday April 7, 8:01 am ET

DURHAM, N.C., April 7 /PRNewswire/ -- Transformations in health care
practices, regulations, and scientific innovation have altered the drug
development landscape over the past decade. According to "Early-Stage
Pharmaceutical Marketing," a report by Cutting Edge Information,
narrowing patent protection, rising drug development costs, and
diminishing productivity intensified the race to market profitable drugs.

Amid this turmoil, leading pharma companies have implemented
organizational and cultural changes to unite R&D and commercialization
and direct them toward shared objectives early in development.
"Innovative drug development and effective resource allocation are
critical to launching profitable products," said Jon Hess, senior
analyst at Cutting Edge Information. "Our report analyzes spending, team
coordination and project management, help pharmaceutical companies
improve their early-stage commercialization efforts."

Budgets and staff must focus on promising drug candidates. Driving a
stronger commercial focus earlier in the development cycle requires
greater marketing resources. Today, marketers play an increasingly
important role in guiding R&D to fill product pipelines with the most
commercially promising drug candidates.

Companies also need to structure fully integrated teams to bridge the
R&D- marketing gap. By finding innovative ways to marry these two
different functions, companies find they can work together toward common
objectives. Integrated projects and therapeutic area teams usually
overcome cultural, political, organizational and geographical boundaries.

The next step requires companies to co-develop formal tools to enable
R&D and marketing to communicate, coordinate and shape drug development.
Without a set of tools to facilitate a bi-directional flow of
information, these two groups will not be able to influence each other.

Lastly, companies need to build development stage-based skill sets with
dedicated project management teams. Leading companies build early-,
middle-, and late-stage commercial skill sets and assemble marketers to
move products through each stage. Although this approach requires smooth
transitions between teams, it also builds expertise at each level to
rapidly move products to the market.

For more information on this report or to learn about other research
being conducted by Cutting Edge Information, visit
http://www.PharmaCommercialization.com or contact Jan Blanchette at
919-433-0218 or jan_blanchette@cuttingedgeinfo.com. For media inquiries,
call Tricia McGovern at 919-433-0217 or
tricia_mcgovern@cuttingedgeinfo.com.