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The Misalignment Of Pharma Pipelines

 
• By Daniel Chancellor

Portfolio decisions for pharma pipelines are multifactorial, although patient need perhaps does not get the attention it merits. Rather, the gravitational pull around risk, investment return, and regulatory incentive tilts the pharma pipeline toward overconcentration in hot therapy areas.  

Test tubes
• Source: Shutterstock

Countless factors go into the decision-making processes underpinning how biopharmaceutical companies build their portfolio. Scientific validation, clinical risk, commercial opportunity, competitive intensity are uppermost, alongside the benefit to patients. The most established – or indeed idealistic – companies, which can afford to swallow risk and diversify across a broad portfolio, will say that unmet need is the fundamental driver for all decisions. Solve for patient necessity and the other considerations will fall into place as a result.

Yet, pharma portfolios and drug pipelines are heavily molded by scientific, commercial, and indeed regulatory practicalities. The objective quantification of...

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