Patent Expiry and Pharmaceutical Market Opportunities at the Nexus of Pricing and Innovation Policy - Innovation and Marketing in the Pharmaceutical Industry - page 278

4. Whether or not a company is proactive (AZ and Prilosec) or put into a position
to react (Lilly and Prozac), product planning in a valuable category should create
both up market (q+, p+) and cost competitive (q−, p−) options to be introduced
at an appropriate time to sandwich the competition.
5. If an over the counter version of a drug is possible to introduce, this avenue can
be used to fi ght against generic entrants. Note that OTC SNDA approval in the
United States typically comes with a limited period of OTC market exclusivity
that can be used to build the OTC brand. The nonprescription convenience is a
positive and unique product attribute during the period of limited OTC market-
ing exclusivity.
6. Of the various marketing mix variables discussed, price is the variable that fi rms
have most control over in the US pharmaceutical context . As such, it should be
used carefully and with adequate consideration for its interaction with other
variables.
7. Brand equity and how it is developed and used is becoming an important compo-
nent of life cycle management. In the pharmaceutical context, product attributes
that may be trademarked such as name or pill color and shape can be used to
secure product uniqueness. This was eloquently demonstrated by AZ as they
placed the incumbent brand name Prilosec on the price competitive product
(q−, p−) and the incumbent brand color purple on the premium offering (q+, p+)
with the new name of Nexium.

9.3.7 Suggestions for Future Research

The above literature review and case studies point to a number of avenues for
future theoretical and empirical research. This research will be interdisciplinary
and may best be undertaken by faculty from multiple schools of the academy. More
specifi cally:

1. The patent expiry event in pharmaceuticals markets is a suffi ciently data rich
environment to support longitudinal marketing mix variable studies of product
effi cacy, price, promotion, and place. This research has offered the kernel of one
such research context (see Fig. 9.3 ). Similar analysis of the large number of pat-
ent expiry events since 1984 (Hatch Waxman implementation) would facilitate a
data rich study of marketing mix variable interactions. This research is best
undertaken my marketing faculty guided by those who know how to interpret the
FDA and USPTO databases.
2. Regulatory agency specifi c Intellectual property data bases such as the FDA
Orange Book are another data rich, longitudinal record of an innovators (incum-
bent NDA owner) subsequent product inventions usually post launch. As such,
they can be a window on what kind of product or manufacturing process improve-
ments follow the NDA launch of a new chemical entity. This publicly available
data set is amenable to both bibliometric and scientometric analysis.