{"id":96,"date":"2003-11-04T16:16:55","date_gmt":"2003-11-04T21:16:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vmalt\/?p=96"},"modified":"2005-12-04T11:06:52","modified_gmt":"2005-12-04T16:06:52","slug":"the-day-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/the-day-job","title":{"rendered":"The Day Job"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s the editorial for the new issue of the magazine I edit for my day-job<\/a>. Enjoy:<\/em><\/p>\n

You, Too?<\/strong>
In the Pharma business, there’s no shame in coming in second. Or third<\/em><\/p>\n

Hardly seems like four years, but that’s how long it’s been since we launched Contract Pharma<\/em><\/a>. We started with a November\/December issue back in 1999, so finishing this issue each year feels something like an anniversary to me (which probably helps explain why I’ve never been married). <\/p>\n

It doesn’t feel quite like a year-end edition, because of production lead times, which leave us around seven or eight weeks till 2004. It’s hard to get that impending New Year’s perspective when Thanksgiving is still weeks away. So, no 2004 resolutions this issue; we’ll save that for next time around (the Jan\/Feb issue). Instead, I’d like to get into the topic of me-too-ism.<\/p>\n

A recent BusinessWeek<\/em><\/a> article (“Is Viagra Vulnerable?” Oct. 27, 2003) goes in-depth with the marketing staff for Lilly, which is responsible for handling the launch of Cialis, a competitor to Viagra and Levitra. Cialis will be backed with a $100 million direct-to-consumer publicity campaign, a first for Lilly (which developed the drug with Icos). The campaign is intended to differentiate the new drug from the others in its class, with the long-term goal, according to Lilly chief executive officer Sidney Taurel, of reaching $2 billion in annual sales for Cialis by 2010.<\/p>\n

Reading the piece during the flight to AAPS, the line in the article that caught my attention was from Leonard M. Blum, Icos’ vice president of sales and marketing. Expressing the challenges Cialis faces, he said, “There aren’t many examples in our industry of products launched in second or third position that end up becoming the leader. It’s a tall order.”<\/p>\n

Doubtless, this line surprises some of my readers, just as it surprised me; it seemed antithetical to the practices of the Pharma industry as we know it. After all, the recent history of the Pharma business is filled with drugs that were second-in-class and managed to perform just fine in the marketplace. In fact, a recent study by McKinsey, published in a Nature Reviews<\/em> supplement, indicated that, of the 32 biggest blockbuster drugs of the past decade, the number of “first-in-class” drugs was matched by the number of “me-too” products that were launched more than 15 years after the “first-in-class” drugs. The study also indicated that, of the nearly 200 drugs launched by the top 15 Pharma companies during that period, the highest per-drug sales amounts were among “fast followers,” launched between two and 15 years after the original.<\/p>\n

Obviously, Nexium is still rolling along just fine, last I checked (which would have been during our July\/August Top Companies report), despite being a late-comer in the proton-pump inhibitor market. Similarly, there’s room for more than one statin out there (and AstraZeneca’s hoping there’s room for one more with Crestor). In fact, over at In the Pipeline<\/a>, Contract Pharma<\/em> contributor Derek Lowe discusses the reductio ad absurdum<\/em> argument that drug companies should only focus on me-too drugs, since they’re the most profitable. Of course, the reality is that, if every company did this, no one would put out any new drugs, and the drug cycle would end in one patent period.<\/p>\n

Now, this isn’t to say that Cialis has nothing to worry about, or that its success is assured by its not being the first drug in its class. Nor, however, does it seem as uphill a task as Mr. Blum made it out to be to BusinessWeek<\/em>. It’ll certainly be an adventure in marketing, as the three companies work to differentiate themselves in the marketplace, while remaining within the boundaries of taste and discretion. But, given the American shift to “lifestyle” drugs, and the graying of the population, being “third-in-class” shouldn’t be too much of a hurdle for Cialis to overcome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s the editorial for the new issue of the magazine I edit for my day-job. Enjoy: You, Too?In the Pharma business, there’s no shame in coming in second. Or third Hardly seems like four years, but that’s how long it’s been since we launched Contract Pharma. We started with a November\/December issue back in 1999, … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “The Day Job”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-1y","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":861,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/update-7","url_meta":{"origin":96,"position":0},"title":"Update","author":"Gil","date":"March 3, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Sorry I've been out of touch, dear reader. We're closing in on the wedding date (March 12!), and this has necessitated a ton of work at the day job, preparing the April issue of the magazine so that my associate editor can handle what I'm leaving behind. This will necessitate\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1333,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/say-hello-to-hollywood","url_meta":{"origin":96,"position":1},"title":"Say hello to Hollywood","author":"Gil","date":"February 5, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Derek Lowe writes about a great article in the February issue of The Scientist. The anonymous author discusses the flaws in the R&D model among major pharma companies and develops an interesting method of fixing them: Go Hollywood! Big Pharma continues to follow the old studio model, though there are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2127,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/pharma-phunnies-2","url_meta":{"origin":96,"position":2},"title":"Pharma Phunnies","author":"Gil","date":"July 6, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The majority of the Top Companies issue is just about done, dear readers! Still need to finish up some layouts and write the short intros to the two major sections (Top 20 Pharma & Top 10 Biopharma), but the finish line is actually within sight! So I thought I'd take\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1855,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/conference-call-2","url_meta":{"origin":96,"position":3},"title":"Conference Call","author":"Gil","date":"January 18, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"As the editor of a (trade) magazine, part of my job involves finding pertinent topics for articles and good writers to cover them. One way to do this is to look through brochures for conferences and call presenters who are speaking on subjects of interest. Sometimes they'll be able to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":571,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/pants-down-work-day","url_meta":{"origin":96,"position":4},"title":"Pants-Down Work Day!","author":"Gil","date":"June 14, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Working at home today, writing up profiles of the top 20 pharma and top 10 biopharma companies, for our annual Top Companies issue. It's a ton of research and writing, so I figured, \"Why wear pants? Why not cocoon myself here at home and get writin'?\"Depending on your level of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Pharmaceuticals"","block_context":{"text":"Pharmaceuticals","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business\/pharmaceuticals"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4129,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/what-it-is-62909","url_meta":{"origin":96,"position":5},"title":"What It Is: 6\/29\/09","author":"Gil","date":"June 29, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"What I'm reading: Plutarch's life of Aemilius Paulus, and a little of The Hunter, a Richard Stark (Donald Westlake) book. But I'm in the home-stretch for my Top Companies ish, so I've just been reading a lot of SEC filings, analyst reports and various pharma-bloggers. 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