Pharmaceutical Executive-11-01-2005

Sponsored and produced by Focus Reports.

The most salient feature of the Medicare prescription drug benefit is its uncertainties. That was perhaps the key insight at a roundtable conducted by Pharmaceutical Executive in conjunction with the executive summit "Medicare Part D: Can There Be Alignment Between Government Goals and Industry Opportunity?" cosponsored by this magazine and Model N, a revenue management-solution provider. With a panel that included representatives from pharma, the legal community, prescription benefit managers, and data and service providers, the roundtable looked at the goals of Part D, the threats and opportunities it presents to stakeholders, the skills companies need to develop, and the way the playing field is likely to change over the next few years. What follows is an edited version of the conversation.

While the typical brand invests more than $100 million in annual sales force support, it spends on average less than $2 million to determine whether the detail piece is driving prescriptions.

PhRMA Guiding Principle number 10 calls for the banishment of reminder ads. While there are many reasons why drug ads truly advance the public health, there are no good arguments for why reminder ads advance public health in any way.

Newly diagnosed patients are looking for a third-party shoulder to lean on, or someone to talk to aside from a physician.

The most important result for pharma firms of the changing sales structure is a reduction in the amount of training resources that are available to them.

Leo H. Sternbach's death feels like the end of an era, a time when the new drugs came easily and it was possible to have a huge impact on patients, then turn around and do it again.

The circumstances of Crawford's departure may complicate the process of securing a permanent FDA leader. Congress and HHS are investigating whether his confirmation process failed to uncover important facts.

Valeant is banking on Viramidine, a pro-drug of its longtime cash cow, ribavirin, to catapult the company to the next level.

Genentech and Biogen's MabThera has been awaiting NICE appraisal for three years. Merck KGaA's Erbitux has waited two-and-a-half years. A ruling on AstraZeneca's Arimidex isn't expected for more than a year.

When investigating a health condition, most consumers search for information by inputting their symptoms. Offering symptoms-related information on your site could help improve its ranking.

Under one bill, states could license patented drugs to generics companies, paying patent holders a royalty.

Medicare's Competitive Acquisition Program takes a shot at reforming Part B drug distribution. But the new rules evoke a vast and complicated Rube Goldberg machine, where nobody gains much-except CMS.