As described in Part 1 of this blog, the combination of justifiably increasing prices, burgeoning late stage pipelines and increasing global wealth will result in stunning growth for the life sciences industry in the near future. However, the aforementioned drivers will require companies to change their modus operandi from infrequent blockbuster launches focused mainly in primary markets to a multitude of smaller launches in more diverse geographical areas. With more activities comes more data. In fact, some industry experts are predicting that the already unmanageable amount of LS data will quadruple by 2020. To make matters worse, it will not only come from organic growth into new geographical regions but also from disparate systems resulting from an increase of M&A activity. Naturally, the companies with the greatest ability to leverage technology to centralize, control and use their data will create a sustainable competitive advantage for the Market Access departments, leading to global revenue maximization.
Imagine a place where the most confidential data that requires an extreme level of accuracy resides. Now, imagine that same data continuously presented in an untimely manner from poorly verified sources, and is processed and analyzed by various people around the globe, who emailed it to each other on error-prone Excel spreadsheets. If you must then use this data to make decisions, how confident would you be?
This is especially concerning considering that a single price change mistake can result in an 80% price cut in another country, which then will reverberate across the globe through International Price Referencing (IRP) and result in multi-million revenue loss over the lifecycle of the product. Unfortunately, this is an everyday occurrence in many companies that have not yet recognized the value of a modern Global Pricing Management (GPM) system built on a strong pricing and reimbursement data foundation.
To fully understand the benefits of a modern GPM Foundation, it’s necessary to look beyond its features. Naturally, such systems must deliver the basics such as the ability to centralize all pricing and reimbursement data as well as help gather, track, analyze, and disseminate information. More importantly, a modern GPM Foundation must enable your organization to maximize revenue. Streamlining workflows by as much as 98.8% and gaining cross-functional ability to access the most accurate prices will not only ensure lower operational costs but also has the potential to reduce P&R submission delays in 87 IRP-utilizing countries around the globe.
Moreover, having the ability to access the same information—from anywhere at any time—by all internal stakeholders will improve collaboration while guaranteeing a global perspective in addition to maintaining a timely response to local market issues. The cloud-based GPM Foundation will also allow for rapid integration and utilization of new data resulting from any M&A activity, as well as ensuring that your company always stays current. In fact, by purchasing a market-leader developed GPM Foundation, your company instantly benefits from embedded market tested best practices to support that operations are at least on-par with industry leaders. In the end, a modern GPM Foundation should always deliver industry best practices to globally utilize centralized P&R data to make data driven decisions, leaving you and your team to focus on what’s truly important—your unique market access strategy for your unique products.
Look for Part 3 of this blog in the next few days where we will discuss the necessity for technology in planning a product launch sequence and flawlessly execute on that plan throughout the entire lifecycle of the product, thereby reducing the inevitable price erosion.
Join us October 10-12 in Vienna, Austria for our Commercial and Pricing Innovation Forum to exchange ideas and discuss innovative strategies with other industry thought leaders.
