Reuters is running a special report, of sorts -- detailing how some former blockbuster prescription drugs are being at least partially supplanted -- here in the second decade of the 21st Century, by OTC nutritionals. Of course, GSK's Horlicks™ (a $300 million a year hot U.K. bedtime drink for seniors) will never ever fully-cover, for say Pfizer's $12 billion a year Lipitor® juggernaut -- at the revenue or EPS line, but CEOs are taking the cash cows wherever they find them. Do go read it all, but here is a snippet (UPDATED: do also read this rundown, at InPharm, courtesy Ed Silverman's Pharmalot):
. . . .Across the western world, Big Pharma is cutting back on the number of scientists it employs in its labs and the money it spends on research and development. The hunt for new drugs continues, but the men and women in white coats -- traditionally viewed as the lifeblood of the industry -- are not as untouchable as they once were. . . .
[Glenn Crocker, chief executive of biotech incubator BioCity in Nottingham [England], says the latest developments build on a well-established principle. "The current trend among big pharma is certainly away from in-house R&D. I remember writing about this ten years ago, so it’s a logical extension of a long-term trend. . . ."
But Crocker says the new system will have its own downsides for pharma trying to in-licence drugs.
"They think everyone will flock to them, but I’m not so sure it’s going to be as straightforward as that. . . ." (from InPharm article)]Across the Atlantic in Cambridge, MA, Adrian Ivinson, director of Harvard's NeuroDiscovery Center, is reminded of the shifts underway in the industry every time he looks out of his window. Over the road, the "gorgeous, state of the art labs" no longer house Merck's neuroscience team. "They only built it a few years ago and had this wonderful neuro group in there," Ivinson says. "Now they're gone."
The magnitude of the changes is hard to ignore. . . .
It really is -- and pharma stock prices reflect the magnitude of that pressure. In fact, Merck still has some 20,000 jobs to shed, this year and next -- as a result of the redundancies occasioned by its November 2009 Schering-Plough bust-up.
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