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Drug makers plan tie-ups with technology firms
Source: Agencies |
February 13, 2010, Saturday
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NEED to check your blood glucose level? There's an iPhone app for that - just one example of drug makers going high-tech to improve their performance.
By using smart gadgets to monitor patients in real time, pharmaceutical companies believe they can improve clinical outcomes and establish the cost-effectiveness of treatments.
The result, according to a report on Thursday from Ernst & Young, will be a host of new collaborations between pharmaceutical companies and businesses in non-traditional areas such as computing, telecoms and even retail.
A few such tie-ups are already happening.
Novartis, for example, signed a US$24 million deal last month with US-based Proteus Biomedical to create "smart pills" that can transmit data from inside the body to monitor patients' vital signs and check they have taken medicines as prescribed.
Bayer is connecting its glucometer for diabetic children to Nintendo's video-gaming consoles to promote consistent blood sugar testing.
And Johnson & Johnson's Lifescan unit has an iPhone application that lets users upload readings from their connected blood glucose monitors to their Apple phone.
"We will see multiple types of collaborations in future," said Patrick Flochel, Ernst & Young life sciences leader for Europe, Middle East, India and Africa.
Non-pharma companies are looking on eagerly. Hans Hofstraat, head of health care partnerships at electronics group Philips, says drug delivery is one area where tech companies can clearly help.
The Dutch group is working on ultrasound-mediated delivery systems and has an intelligent pill, or iPill, that can target medicines to the right point in the digestive tract.
"We are not a pharma company but we would like to interact with pharma companies to provide solutions," he told a pharmaceuticals conference.
Mobile phone company Orange, a unit of France Telecom, has similar ambitions. Its focus is on patient communication and chronic disease management, according to Michael Reilly, director of Orange Healthcare UK.
Big drug makers have traditionally relied on a few blockbuster medicines to bring in cash. But the old business model is breaking down. Companies are diversifying into new areas such as consumer health, as well as cutting costs and forging more flexible alliances with small biotech companies.
The revised model is sometimes dubbed "Pharma 2.0."
But coming up next, Ernst & Young argues, is "Pharma 3.0," in which pharmaceutical companies will increasingly look to sell ancillary products and services linked to their medicines by working with IT and other companies.
The new era poses some challenges, not least the cultural gap between tech companies and drug makers.
By using smart gadgets to monitor patients in real time, pharmaceutical companies believe they can improve clinical outcomes and establish the cost-effectiveness of treatments.
The result, according to a report on Thursday from Ernst & Young, will be a host of new collaborations between pharmaceutical companies and businesses in non-traditional areas such as computing, telecoms and even retail.
A few such tie-ups are already happening.
Novartis, for example, signed a US$24 million deal last month with US-based Proteus Biomedical to create "smart pills" that can transmit data from inside the body to monitor patients' vital signs and check they have taken medicines as prescribed.
Bayer is connecting its glucometer for diabetic children to Nintendo's video-gaming consoles to promote consistent blood sugar testing.
And Johnson & Johnson's Lifescan unit has an iPhone application that lets users upload readings from their connected blood glucose monitors to their Apple phone.
"We will see multiple types of collaborations in future," said Patrick Flochel, Ernst & Young life sciences leader for Europe, Middle East, India and Africa.
Non-pharma companies are looking on eagerly. Hans Hofstraat, head of health care partnerships at electronics group Philips, says drug delivery is one area where tech companies can clearly help.
The Dutch group is working on ultrasound-mediated delivery systems and has an intelligent pill, or iPill, that can target medicines to the right point in the digestive tract.
"We are not a pharma company but we would like to interact with pharma companies to provide solutions," he told a pharmaceuticals conference.
Mobile phone company Orange, a unit of France Telecom, has similar ambitions. Its focus is on patient communication and chronic disease management, according to Michael Reilly, director of Orange Healthcare UK.
Big drug makers have traditionally relied on a few blockbuster medicines to bring in cash. But the old business model is breaking down. Companies are diversifying into new areas such as consumer health, as well as cutting costs and forging more flexible alliances with small biotech companies.
The revised model is sometimes dubbed "Pharma 2.0."
But coming up next, Ernst & Young argues, is "Pharma 3.0," in which pharmaceutical companies will increasingly look to sell ancillary products and services linked to their medicines by working with IT and other companies.
The new era poses some challenges, not least the cultural gap between tech companies and drug makers.
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