The pharmaceutical industry is facing tremendous challenges moving forward into the new millennium. These range from expiring patents on blockbuster drugs, to thin pipelines and stiffer regulatory hurdles, to name but a few; if it sounds like a major crisis then it probably is. In general, crisis management, which involves dealing with threats after they have occurred, is the result of poor risk management or inadequate strategic planning. As a result, the industry has seen an increase in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity, which has resulted in job losses, mandatory efficiency campaigns across all R&D disciplines and an explosion in tapping emerging markets through outsourcing and acquisition-based market penetration.
25 July, 2011