Trump says the biopharma industry can no longer depend on the higher US profit margins with his initiative to peg US drug prices to global norms. The US president needs second and third initiatives to be successful: Enable the regulators and biopharma industry to rationalize R&D, and to eliminate selling costs that collectively account for one-half of the industry, writes Viren Mehta, founding partner of Mehta Partners LLC. The US Administration’s proposal to peg Medicare Part B payments to foreign…

More than three decades ago, the Hatch-Waxman Act ushered in a new model of pharma industry renewal by opening the door to effective generic competition after drug patent expiry and encouraging originators to invest in innovation. Viren Mehta, founding partner of Mehta Partners LLC, would like to see similar gains from biosimilar adoption. The barriers to biosimilars adoption today bring back bitter-sweet memories of the regulatory revolution that eventually gave birth to the generics industry in the 1980s. Younger readers…

With money pouring into biopharma in China, and regulatory reforms favoring market growth and R&D speed, western firms should watch their backs, warns Viren Mehta, founding partner of Mehta Partners LLC. The dollars and renminbi are adding up, as are structural and regulatory changes in China. With the modified IPO listing rules in Hong Kong, China’s momentum as a biopharma leader is accelerating. Even the Trump trade tirade seems to bypass many bold biopharma initiatives in China that have brought…

Buying Shire gives Takeda the chance to exploit global tax benefits and gain other profit-promoting advantages through integrating with Shire's differently focused business. Outside of pharma, business model rationales are changing rapidly, and old certainties cannot be taken for granted. Pharma would ignore the wider revolution at its peril, and Takeda's move is a step in the right direction, argues Viren Mehta, founding partner of Mehta Partners LLC. Three examples capture the pace of change all around us: the largest…

President Trump's much anticipated pronouncements on drug pricing reform leave a lot to be clarified. Biopharma companies and their leaders should grasp the opportunity to lead from the front and propose tangible and transformative actions that deliver benefits for all stakeholders. This may be one of the few letdowns that the biopharma industry should embrace, if not relish. Shrill propaganda by so many in the government, starting with President Trump himself soon after entering the US presidential race, had escalated…

As two high-profile pharma veterans make their move into pharmacy benefit management leadership, Viren Mehta, founding partner of Mehta Partners LLC, ponders the challenges they face and the impact their actions will have on the pharma industry. Yet another exposé about the drug cost conundrum that the pricing strategies of pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) pose for the industry was detailed mid-March in the Financial Times. This report, down to the penny, showed how many of the widely used drugs incur…

It seems only a matter of time that the leaders of established biopharma will need to redefine core functions such as research, manufacturing and marketing around a new vision. Consider if every individual had a laptop and mobile phone equipped with a kit that regularly monitors vital signs and manages personalized health data under a life-time health care subscription service, allowing for real-time consultation with appropriate counselors and coaches from a consortium of providers – who also have access to…

Prices Will Come Down Substantially. Watch.” This is the president of the US talking about drug prices during his State of the Union Message to the US Congress! The New Year is already full of intrigue, and we're only a few weeks into 2018. The last week of January in particular threw a 1 – 2 – 3 punch at the industry: The new US Secretary for Health and Human Services (HHS) Alex Azar was sworn in. On the surface…

Google's Waymo self-driving car project just passed an important milestone, with the arrival of its fully autonomous modified Chrysler vans on the streets of Chandler, Arizona. Uber, GM and others will not be far behind. Society soon will need far fewer roads, parking garages, and of course cars—while hopefully the quality of our lives will see another step-change as it did with the smart phone revolution. And it is all about data and the resulting intelligence. Healthcare systems globally are…