Customers think pharma plays too safe

Most high-level medical customers think biopharmaceutical companies should take more commercial risks, according to a new survey.

The New Health Report 2012 from Quintiles also noted that a majority of pharma executives and their customers support more risk sharing in commercial deals.

It also found that 81% of UK patients with long-term conditions would be willing to accept greater clinical risks for the sake of greater benefits.

The report was based on a survey of more than 1350 biopharmaceutical and healthcare management executives and healthcare investors in the US and the UK.

Better metrics are needed to assess both commercial and clinical risks for the sake of wider consensus, the report concluded.

More than half of NHS executives thought the pharma industry was too risk-averse, while 65% of industry executives thought their companies too enough or too many risks.

However, there was widespread agreement between companies and customers on the value of risk-sharing agreements, with 73% of NHS executives and 55% of industry executives convinced they would promote innovation.

More than 70% of biopharma executives and UK payers also believed innovation would benefit from pre-competitive agreements between companies.

John Doyle, Managing Director of Consulting at Quintiles, commented: “Payers’ interest in early involvement in the drug development process, complemented by their experience in balancing risk and benefit, could serve as a wake-up call to the biopharmaceutical industry.”