I came across what I think was an excellent webinar delivered by Deloitte in January on Biosimilars. It is an archived event that you can access at your discretion.
I really like the discussion of how economics and regulation are effecting the pharma industry, specifically with regard to innovation and drug development decisions. In particular, there is a discussion of 3 unintended consequences of Waxman-Hatch that may be affecting pursuit of only "blockbuster" candidates which in turn may be big factor "drying up the pipeline".
I think the discussion around whether the Bio industry should be viewed as even being in the same phase of its development as Big Pharma was when Waxman-Hatch was introduced is interesting. A strong corollary question - is Waxman-Hatch right piece of legislation to be applying to Bio in its current stage of development?
I lean toward thinking that it is not an ideal model based on this presentation. Deloitte's discussion of the "No Man's Land" scenario is particularly fascinating to me - it has to do with Venture Capital's willingness to take risk under current model and implications for innovation in the industry as a result. I don't want to spoil it further but would encourage you to check it out for yourselves. For those of you who may be impatient types - Slide 17 of the presentation contains bulk of the No Man's Land discussion.
I give it the thumb's up!
Posted by Bruce Lehr March 13th 2010
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