A Race To The Bottom On Price Must Not Mean Low Quality, High Volumes

Professor (Dr) Hilary Thomas, Partner and Chief Medical Officer - Healthcare and Life Sciences Advisory and Global Centre of Excellence, KPMG in the UK gives Viveka Roychowdhury a glimpse of some of the trends to watch out for in 2019

With governments in key markets like the US, UK and EU becoming more focussed on reducing the healthcare burden of aging populations, what are the challenges facing Indian life sciences companies?

Cost pressures mean that cutting costs will be very important – and it is simpler to cut the cost of drugs rather than the complexity of making savings across the system. Therefore there are pricing challenges which will feed through to Indian companies doing business in the US and EU.

How can Indian life sciences companies move from a pure generics volume play in key markets like the US, etc to a more differentiated value proposition?

There needs to be a focus on quality in order to compete globally and there will need to be a focus on how outcomes and value based pricing/ funding models would apply.

Governments, and consumers, want high quality patented medicines at low cost of generics. How can Indian pharma companies meet these two seemingly paradoxical demands?