Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 1
The Pharmaceutical Industry: Specifi city,
Challenges, and What You Can Learn
from this topic
Min Ding , Jehoshua Eliashberg , and Stefan Stremersch
The pharmaceutical industry is an industry that is in a class of its own (Stremersch
and Van Dyck
2009
). It is signifi cantly more linked to science and more regulated
than any other industry. Because pharmaceutical drugs substantially impact peo-
ple's quality-of-life, both regulation and the unique channel of healthcare provider
(e.g., doctor or pharmacist) and payer (i.e., government or insurer) are designed to
protect the patient's wellbeing at reasonable cost.
The industry consistently grows 4-7 % per year and is fast approaching the magic
US$1 trillion market size. At the same time, it faces tremendous innovation
and marketing challenges. These two factors drive the success of a branded drug
company. A fi rm with subpar innovation for an extended period will see its
M. Ding (
*
)
Smeal Professor of Marketing and Innovation,
The Pennsylvania State University, Smeal College of Business,
408 Business Building, University Park , PA 16802-3007 , USA
Advisory Professor of Marketing, School of Management,
Fudan University , China
e-mail: minding@fudan.edu.cn
J. Eliashberg
The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania,
700 Jon M. Huntsman Hall, 3730 Walnut Street , Philadelphia , PA 19104 , USA
e-mail: eliashberg@wharton.upenn.edu
S. Stremersch
Desiderius Erasmus Distinguished Chair of Economics and
Chaired Professor of Marketing, Erasmus School of Economics, Erasmus University
Rotterdam, Burg. Oudlaan 50 , 3062 PA, Rotterdam , The Netherlands
Professor of Marketing , IESE Business School , Avenida Pearson 21 , Barcelona , Spain
e-mail: stremersch@ese.eur.nl; SStremersch@iese.edu
