Pharma 2020: PwC Analysis

PwC’s latest industry synopsis offers some of the bleeding obvious, but also a few gems that I think companies are perhaps not too aware of.

The clincher for me is in the following excerpt:

Management guru Clay Christensen has convincingly demonstrated how disruptive innovations in various industries have dismantled the prevailing business model, by enabling new players to target the least profitable customer segments and gradually move upstream until they can satisfy the demands of every customer – at which point the old business model collapses.

Pharma is currently undergoing just such a period of disruptive innovation. By 2020, most medicines will be paid for on the basis of the results they deliver – and since many factors influence outcomes, this means that it will have to move into the health management space, both to preserve the value of its products and to avoid being sidelined by new players.

Indeed there is some partnering occurring. we are seeing pharma team up with devices groups and enlist all sorts of health-related technology companies.

The report mentions that several companies have already attempted to create disease management offerings, but met with no success. It highlights the shift towards outcomes measurement and personalized medicine.

My personal view is the following:

The ‘disruptive innovation’ will ultimately be consumer driven. Already consumers are trying to take control of their health related information and better measure the success of their treatments. In the same way that doctors will increasingly become partners in managing health (moving away from dictating treatments), industry will have to learn how to partner with patients.

Therefore the obvious next question is how industry, and particularly drug companies, can begin to partner with consumers? The answer, to me, is that the greatest asset pharma companies have is access to the drug-related information people need. Pharma’s greatest value in the chain of treatment is not in R+D, clinical trials, or health technology assessment – it is ultimately that as managers of the treatment-related information, it is in the best position to decide how a drug or other treatment can be used.

If they can link this knowledge to individuals health data then they can superceed other players.

To do this pharma needs to begin looking at information systems that will allow them to measure individual patient outcomes and provide adaptive feedback. It may require investment in the EHR space and other technologies such as mobile apps.

There are some barriers to dealing directly with consumers, more in countries like Australia than in the USA. This is then the first step – understand how this collaboration is going to work and what other players we need to engage to make it work.

For another synopsis of the PwC publication see FiercePharma.

EHR Plays Key Role in Personalized Medicine Study

From http://health-care-it.advanceweb.com

Through the study of genetic links between patients and chronic diseases, researchers at Geisinger Health System in Danville, Pa., are hoping to gain a better understanding of how to prevent, diagnose and treat these diseases.

A new program at Geisinger called MyCode is capitalizing on the health system’s unique ability to utilize its integrated infrastructure to link genomic information with an advanced electronic health record (EHR) system and fast-growing biobank. The result is a tool that is the bridge to Geisinger’s personalized medicine program — an initiative that promises to ultimately re-engineer the paradigm of health care from reactive to predictive and, with the help of researchers and physicians, engage patients in their personal health and wellness.

Geisinger patients learn about MyCode at Geisinger Medical Group sites, and about 90 percent choose to participate. With written consent, participants agree to provide a deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) sample — chemical material that is inherited and extracted from a blood sample — at their next scheduled blood draw. From there, the sample is linked with EHR information and routed to the system’s biobank for quick researcher access.

Since launching the MyCode pilot program two years ago, researchers have collected 20,000 DNA samples. Samples generally fall into two groups: those from patients seeking general health and wellness care from their family physicians and those from patients seeking specialty medical care, such as bariatric surgery.

These samples are helping Geisinger researchers gain critical insight into patients’ risk of chronic health conditions, such as abdominal aortic aneurysms, severe asthma, depression, obesity, familial ureterocoele, digoxin/phenytoin toxicity, overactive bladder syndrome and various pain conditions.

“This information will ultimately improve health by motivating people to make positive lifestyle changes, such as exercising, eating healthy, quitting smoking as well as decisions to seek further medical evaluation and preventive strategies,” said Geisinger Center for Health Research Director Walter “Buzz” Stewart, PhD, MPH.

A number of safeguards protect the privacy of participants’ genetic and EHR information. Confidentiality and subject anonymity are strictly maintained by de-identifying the samples. Samples are assigned specific identification numbers, encoded, encrypted and entered into a secure database. A governance board — with Geisinger and non-Geisinger representation — meets several times a year to audit the process.

“The goal of MyCode is to translate genetic data into specific knowledge about a disease that is clinically relevant and will enhance patient care,” said Glenn Gerhard, MD, staff scientist and director of Geisinger’s Genomics Core.

“MyCode aims to discover genes that increase a person’s risk of chronic disease and help us understand why people respond differently to treatments,” explained Weis Center for Research Director David Carey, PhD. “The more we know about the causes of disease, the greater our ability to provide more effective treatment and, ultimately, prevent disease from occurring.”

According to Dr. Carey, by matching genes with a comprehensive profile of a specific chronic condition, researchers are able to study groups of patients with similar signs and symptoms, and begin to predict and understand how they will respond to a specific treatment or medication.

“This project provides the opportunity to move genetics from the laboratory directly to patient care,” explained Dr. Stewart. “MyCode is driving research that promises to improve the health and health care of patients nationwide.”