Covid-19 and the opportunity for evolution in Pharma
Paul Petrelli of Jazz Pharmaceuticals sees the pandemic as a good time to shake-up best practices (600 words, 4 min.)
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The Covid-19 pandemic has provided the Pharma with an opportunity to challenge the industry’s conventional thinking and how Pharma conducts business, according to Paul Petrelli, the General Manager of Jazz Pharmaceuticals.
During his presentation at the 14th National Pharmaceutical Congress, Petrelli suggested Covid-19 has provided the industry with two options. One is a slow and steady evolution. The other option is to revolutionize the way Pharma conducts business.
“The approach to health care has been changing. Provinces are now enabling payments to physicians for telemedicine and other virtual care,” said Petrelli (photo below). “There are examples where the patient care model is changing—Mednow.ca is a great example—they are offering one-stop virtual care where patients and physicians can access virtual pharmacists and get a script.”
Covid-19 has also created an evolution in the customer, Petrelli notes. While the healthcare professionals Pharma has historically called on are still there, there are new customers that the industry will be calling on in the future, Petrelli said. Further, the customers' phenotype is changing—they are becoming savvy as more data becomes available, he added.
“I think there is a great opportunity for us to start shaking the tree and looking at new opportunities for major change around us,” Petrelli said.
While Covid-19 has created an opportunity for major change, Petrelli is aware that it is easier said than done.
He pointed to the larger companies in the industry, noting that those in Big Pharma still have to deliver business results and don’t necessarily have the resources to implement the major changes they’d like to see.
Additionally, Petrelli said there are legal and compliance issues. While there is the potential for positive changes to the industry, those in Pharma have to consider how compliance departments react.
“It is always difficult to rebuild the plane while it flies,” he said. “There's no way in which we could cause a pause [the way Pharma operates] and rebuild it. The change would be monumental. As we know, healthcare is huge in Canada. To be able to start picking things off and making changes would take [a lot of] work.”
The takeaway: Though Covid-19 has created a potential for change in Pharma, Petrelli said the industry needs to be strategic regarding which opportunities to take advantage of.
“I’ll be honest, a lot of it is we don't know what we don't know,” he said. “I think there are opportunities for us to look outside of our industry in terms of where some of the other successes are.”
According to Petrelli, Jazz Pharmaceuticals, which agreed to acquire GW Pharmaceuticals last month, will approach healthcare professionals to understand better where and how Pharma can be revolutionized and how the HCP-Pharma interaction can evolve.
“The approach that we're going to be taking is establishing a small group of stakeholders, consider it a pilot project, and start understanding and relate to the patient journey,” Petrelli explained.
Further reading: The folks over at WIRED write that Covid-19 will accelerate the AI healthcare revolution. Story here.
YOUR HEALTHBIZ WEEK 03/09/21
According to a Reuters report, Teva is being investigated by EU antitrust regulators who are looking into whether the Israeli drugmaker illegally hindered rivals’ access to its multiple sclerosis medicine Copaxone. The European Commission is trying to determine whether Teva has abused its dominant market position in breach of EU antitrust rules, leading to fines. The European Commission said Teva might have artificially extended the market exclusivity of Copaxone by strategically filing and withdrawing patents after the 2015 expiry of a basic patent covering ingredient glatiramer acetate, which is used in the drug. This manoeuvre repeatedly blocked its generic competitor's entry, who had to file a new legal challenge each time.
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals and Sanofi announced that the U.S. FDA has accepted for review the supplemental Biologics License Application (sBLA) for dupilumab (Dupixent) as an add-on treatment for children aged 6 to 11 years with uncontrolled moderate-to-severe asthma. Dupilumab is currently approved as an add-on treatment for patients with uncontrolled moderate-to-severe asthma aged 12 and older with elevated eosinophils or oral corticosteroid dependent asthma.
New Phase III data announced for baricitinib (Olumiant), already marketed by Eli Lilly and Incyte for rheumatoid arthritis, shows efficacy for the Janus kinase 1 (JAK1)/JASK2 inhibitor in severe alopecia areata. The data from the BRAVE-AA2 study in 546 adults showed both 2 mg and 4 mg doses of baricitinib caused hair regrowth in adult patients with more than 50 per cent scalp hair loss, compared with placebo. According to the companies, the improvement was statistically significant for both doses at 36 weeks in patients with an episode lasting between six months and eight years of more than 50 per cent hair loss. Lilly and Incyte expect data from a second alopecia areata trial later this year.
The U.S. FDA approved Pfizer’s supplemental New Drug Application (sNDA) for lorlatinib (Lorbrena), expanding the indication to include first-line treatment of people with anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK)-positive non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Lorlatinib is now indicated for adults with metastatic NSCLC whose tumours are ALK-positive as detected by an FDA-approved test. Lorlatinib is a third-generation ALK inhibitor specifically designed to inhibit the most common tumour mutations that drive resistance to current medications and address metastases in the brain, a frequent site for disease progression ALK-positive NSCLC.
NATIONAL PHARMA CONGRESS SPRING WEBINAR
The National Pharma Congress Spring Webinaris scheduled for Wednesday, April 7, 2021. Be sure to watch the NPC HealthBiz Weekly for updates on the event.
CANADIAN HEALTHCARE MARKETING HALL OF FAME
The Canadian Healthcare Marketing Hall of Fame awards were established in 2002 to honour healthcare marketers who have contributed to our avocation and are an inspiration to others.
More than 100 honourees have been selected during the past 18 years. In the selection committee's view, they stand for a representative cross-section of the qualities that make our business unique and fulfilling. Each week, NPC Healthbiz Weekly will acknowledge one past Hall of Fame Honouree.
2012 Inductee
Barbara Reynolds
Astellas Pharma
Markham, Ont.
Editor’s note: Barbara served as Director of Marketing and New Product Development at Astellas Pharma Canada from 1999 to 2012.
The whole can be greater than the sum of the parts, and that’s true for Astellas Pharma Canada Inc., according to the company’s Director of Marketing and New Product Development. “We have shown that if you have close relationships with your customers and understand
the patients’ needs, you can be very successful,” declares Barbara Reynolds, who joined Astellas in 1999 as a product manager. The company then had about 20 employees and $10 million in annual sales. It has grown substantially in size and hit the $100-million mark in annual sales early this year.
Reynolds graduated from the University of Guelph with a Bachelor of Applied Sciences, Human Nutrition, and worked as a dietitian at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children. While she found the experience rewarding, Reynolds decided she would be a better fit for the private sector.
Armed with a Masters in Business Administration from York University, Reynolds approached pharmaceutical companies, seeking a marketing position, but was told that, lacking a sales background, she didn’t have the chops for marketing.
“In the end, they were right,” recalls Reynolds. “You really need to know what it is like for the salesperson day-to-day to be a good marketer.”
Beginning in 1990, Reynolds worked as a nutritional sales representative at Wyeth Ltd. for two years and then went to Ortho Biotech.
There, she began as a product specialist, became Manager of Technical Resources, was later promoted to Product Manager, Specialty Products and then to Product Manager, Biotech Oncology. While at Ortho Biotech, she had the opportunity to focus on the first monoclonal antibody in Canada, OKT3, Leustatin and Eprex, a supportive cancer therapy.
Reynolds became well-versed in transplant medicine and recognized that Canada's reimbursement programs did not address supportive cancer drugs.
Her familiarity with transplant medicine got Reynolds noticed, and Astellas approached her.
Her first mission was to promote Prograf, which had been recently approved to prevent organ rejection in liver transplantation and kidney transplantation. Since the community of transplant surgeons in Canada is small, Reynolds saw an opportunity to provide education in the form of preceptorships. Canadian transplant surgeons travelled to Japan, where surgeons have abundant experience with living-related liver transplantation.
“They all got to work with pioneers, and now the bigger centres in Canada are running living-related liver transplant programs,” says Reynolds.
Admittedly, with scarce resources, Reynolds had to be strategic and targeted in promoting the Astellas portfolio. “We looked after our individual customer needs,” says Reynolds.
Consequently, funds were allocated for concrete proposals such as investigator-initiated research, a fellowship's sponsorship, or supporting travel for physicians to gain in-depth knowledge about epidemiologic research in transplant medicine.
Reynolds has also paid attention to patient education, funding a program to inform kidney dialysis patients about what to expect after transplantation, a program that has been implemented at hospitals throughout Canada.
Reynolds's big achievement was the reversal of a Common Drug Review decision not to reimburse Vesicare®, an overactive bladder treatment.
NEXT WEEK
The 03/16 edition of NPC Healthbiz Weekly will feature Dr. Karen Lee, President and CEO of Parkinson Canada, on the impact of Covid-19 on the health charitable sector and research funding. It’s easy to get your no-charge subscription and have the issue sent to your phone or inbox each Tuesday at 6:00 a.m. sharp.
Stay safe, stay sure, and stay on your game. We’ll see you again next Tuesday.