Pharma companies

Unfortunately, because of legal considerations, it is not possible to fully describe an implemented system within a specifically named company. However, in this section we address some key issues that have arisen within one of our recent projects with a major Pharma company, some of the lessons from which are, we feel, broadly applicable to future projects. 

How does green chemistry now relate to pharmaceuticals production A special challenge for manufacturing of pharmaceuticals is the complexity of the molecules, which requires many synthesis steps. For example, an analysis of 128 drug candidates from three major pharma companies showed that, on average, eight steps are required for the synthesis of active... 

Pharmacology information, in Investigational New Drug Applications, 78 692-693 Pharma companies, 77 16 Pharmacophores, 70 326, 327 boranes as, 4 227-228 chemical centers in, 70 382... 

Commercial pharmaceutical companies frequently use pay-as-you-go strategies. Examples include buying R8rD ideas from biotech companies ( external innovation ) and paying outside contractors to conduct experiments and cHnical trials. Some virtual pharma companies purchase almost all of their R8rD from outside vendors (see Maurer [2005] for a detailed description.)... 

In short, most pharma companies assure the quality and product safety related to their laboratories, but are overzea-lous in meeting regulatory requirements to the detriment of cost controls. The responsible segment of the industry is doing more than it needs to do and is spending too much time and too many resources on the vahdation of DIMS. 

Allow pharma companies to develop drugs faster to maximize patent protection and secure marketplace advantage... 

Some big and medium pharma companies are hybrids in the sense that they also offer pharmaceutical fine chemicals and custom manufacturing services and therefore compete with their PFC suppliers. 

The roots of the big and medium pharma companies go back either to drugstores or chemical companies, the former prevailing in United States the latter, in European enterprises. The lack of a chemical manufacturing history is also a reason why US pharma companies en principe are more prone to outsourcing. 

Small pharma companies originate mostly from academia. Therefore, their R D strategy is more focussed on the elucidation of the biological roots of diseases rather than HTS. In order to attract investors, they are also referred to as biopharmaceutical companies. As all biopharmaceutical companies are neither small (e.g. Amgen, Genentech), nor exclusively developing big molecules, this term is not appropriate. 

Customers Ethical pharma companies Generic pharma companies... 

Of the top 20 pharma companies, 9 are based in the United States, accounting for just over 50% of the 350 billion sales (see Table 11.2). As there are only a few domestic suppliers, the market is also attractive for non-USA-based fine-chemical companies. Europe follows in second place with 7 of the... 

Small or virtual companies are attractive for CROs. They require experienced specialists to assist them with various chemistry-related research services and are willing to sign on FTE agreements more easily than are big pharma companies. The sales cycle is short, and the headaches are minor in selling to virtual pharma. Also, they prefer to deal with local companies. 

Midsize (medium) pharma plays a modest role in blockbuster drugs (only three pharma companies outside the top 20 had blockbuster drugs in 20041), but are important users of API-for-generics. 

Customer categories. Big pharma companies, which are mainly customers for exclusive products and have extensive logistics departments of their own, prefer to deal directly with the supplier s headquarters, regardless of its location. Midsize and virtual pharma companies welcome the logistic assistance from agents, for example, for custom clearance and local transportation. 

As a general rule of thumb, the more important the deal, the closer the customer intimacy. If a research laboratory buys a 100-g flask of sodium bicarbonate from a laboratory reagent company, it will place the order through email. If a virtual pharma company entrusts the total production of the API for its only drug to a custom manufacturer, a strong personal relationship is mandatory. 

A description of the present status of PFC sourcing from Asia by Western big pharma companies is the following statement from a Pfizer spokesperson Pfizer is working intensively with Asian based companies to move there the manufacturing of old APIs (= commodities) because of cost containment goals, while the European based companies are mostly used for contract manufacturing on advanced intermediates for New Chemical Entities. ... 

Global pharma companies either (1) produce APIs in-house sourcing basic, nonregulated PFCs from China or (2) source advanced, exclusive PFCs from Indian fine-chemical companies (shortcutting their traditional European suppliers). 

Indicators of the things to come are half a dozen contract manufacturing agreements that Indian fine-chemical companies have concluded with Western big pharma companies (see Table 14.5). 

Big pharma companies have to foster two opposite cultures at the same time, namely creative, intellectually intensive research a la Hollywood on one hand and capital-intensive lean production a la Detroit on the other hand. 

This sale and back-lease model is applied by many other pharmaceutical companies. It enables the company to dispose of assets without being forced to lay off employees. The net effect for the industry as a whole is that statistically, the share of outsourcing is increasing. However, the problem of underutilized capacity persists. For a hne-chemical company, the acquisition of an API plant from a pharma company is problematic. Once the supply contract, offered by the pharma company as an incentive for the acquisition, expires, the problem arises as to what the capacity should be used for. This is all the more the case as the plants usually are designed to manufacture just one product and therefore are not truly multipurpose. Last but not least, the plants have been run as cost centers and the implementation of a lean production... 

It is expected that the top 10 pharma companies will generate more than half of their sales from products derived from other organizations R D efforts in the future. Truly innovative research is also performed at governmental agencies, such as the National Institute of Health (NIH) in the United States. 

Culture shock within the R D divisions of the megamerged pharma companies and a brain drain of talented young researchers. 

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