In the pharmaceutical and biotech sectors, companies depend on alliances and partnerships throughout the course of the drug development and medical product development lifecycle.  These alliances are critical to their success.  Pharma and Biotech companies are immersed in the development, testing and delivery of new medical cures and products that treat disease, extend life and improve the quality of life. 

 

Often, a critical component of their success lies in their ability to establish and effectively manage alliances and partnerships that may be used in one to several of the phases of a drug or product’s development and delivery lifecycle. 

 

With this lifecycle that can take over a decade to complete and can cost in the billions of dollars, it is critical to continuously improve the effectiveness of these partnerships in terms of both money and time in order to improve the drug or product’s revenue potential and profitability.     

 

There are significant market drivers that are causing an increased interest in creating additional alliance and partner effectiveness between Pharma and Biotech companies that include:

 

Rising Pharma and Biotech development costs Need to generate cash flow Lower employee productivity Upcoming patent expirations Weak product pipelines Need to validate technology Biotech companies’ evolution to having a full commercialization capabilities Gain downstream technology expertise	Develop regulatory and marketing strength Diversify risk Increase company value Attract investment Build global reach Access product line Aging population (more drugs, therapies and technologies will be required) Decreases in size workforce

 

The result of these drivers is that as the reliance on alliances and partnerships continue to increase, pharma and biotech companies must constantly improve their effectiveness in order to compete.  

 

Not unlike alliances and partnerships in other market sectors, Pharma and Biotech alliances have similar alliance issues that need to be addressed.  AllianceAnalytics has found that this common thread of issues can be found in business to business alliance and business partner relationships. 

 

Specifically, in the Pharma and Biotech space, there are several consistent alliance and partnership issues, which include:

 

• Conflicting Objectives

• Conflicting Values

• Different Corporate Cultures

• Poor Communication

• Personnel Turnover – Decreasing Workforce

• Ineffective Governance

• Dependency on Alliance Team Members to overcome obstacles

• Underperforming Alliances

• 20-33% of Alliances are restructured or cancelled

• No ability to capture knowledge or develop predictive analytics

There are multiple alliance types within the Pharma and Biotech market just as there are in the other Partner Value Optimizer markets.  The alliance and business partnership types are shown in the diagram below.