Pharmaceutical Investment Analysis

Calculations of economic profitability can only be predictive in the phase of process development, before a plant is on stream for a long time. Therefore, individual components of costs and market evaluations will bear some uncertainty. This uncertainty is relatively high for pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals. The impact of these uncertainties on the profitability of a process may be quantified by a sensitivity analysis. This analysis provides information about the sensitivity of the process economics to changes in parameters relevant for the profitability (investment costs, price and consumption of raw materials, utility unit costs, product value and demand, etc.), and therefore on the reliability of the result of the economic evaluation. In the early stages of process development, a high sensitivity indicates the areas requiring attention for continued R D work. 

Laboratory automation in pharmaceutical analysis attained maturity since robots first appeared in pharmaceutical laboratories more than 20 years ago. While automation offers great promise for improving sample throughput and reducing sample backlog, its implementation has not been without problems. The industry cannot invest heavily in tools that produce little return on investment. Strategies in key aspects of automation such as planning, vendor selection, personnel, and efficient use of systems can determine the success or failure of an automation project. 

It should be noted that the most important tool in the process described above is the skill of the human experts. At the same time, great support is provided by the access to all the relevant literature. The ability to search relationally across public toxicity databases using both biological and chemical criteria represents a potentially powerful approach for SAR analysis. The databases in Table 8.1 constitute the first source of publicly available data for retrieving toxicological information. Searches in chemical abstracts can provide a wealth of chemical and biochemical data on individual chemicals. Whilst large pharmaceutical and chemical companies have invested heavily... 

Other problems also cloud Mueller s and Reardon s findings. The benefits of R D cannot be obtained without investments in plant and equipment that produce the products and, in the current market, without the advertising and promotion necessary to sell them. While R D may be a necessary condition for obtaining high returns, firms must invest in those seemingly less profitable activities as well. Analysis of the market returns on investment as a whole in the seven largest pharmaceutical companies in Mueller s and Reardon s study found only three of the companies with stock market returns greater than the cost of capital.37... 

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