unilife - still bullish after q2 2014 earnings, page-22

My thoughts on what should be the take aways are...


Payer pressure on protected medicines, together with
smaller patient populations, larger and longer clinical trial requirements and slower uptake means that protected medicines are not as profitable as previously, reducing
the gap between the profitability of protected medicines and other areas of pharma (although a gap still exists).

This LoE boom has naturally led to an increasing abundance of high-profile generics, at a time when austerity measures in mature markets such as Japan and Europe have
led to an increased push for generics usage over off-patent brands, and even the introduction of INN prescribing in some countries.

At present although growth in mature markets is essentially flat vs the high growth emerging markets, over 80% of NCE sales come from the mature eight markets. The
top 20 original brands in emerging markets are all older products, the majority of which had a first launch 11-20 years ago. Getting the price-volume balance right in
these emerging markets is essential to success for big pharma - they have to be able to make innovation pay in pharmerging markets because it is under such pressure in the large developed markets.

There is of course, an additional hurdle for successful pharma players to overcome; it’s no longer just about the payer and physician. On a global basis we see health insurance schemes, and government schemes, trying to push responsibility for healthcare onto the patient.

We noted above the rise of the patient as a stakeholder with a voice and an opinion in healthcare. All prescription medicine players, whether protected or unprotected, have to take note of this and respond. But just as there is an opportunity for companies whose primary focus is the prescriber (the innovative protected companies) and the payer (the unprotected prescription companies), perhaps there is also a role for a company that has as its focus the patient/consumer. Since a primary focus here would be a new entrant it is not yet clear exactly what the core of this model might be – it could be from OTC consumer medicines, or potentially from “lifestyle” prescription products paid for out of pocket. It could even be from the very recent but burgeoning area of medical apps (which can even be prescribable), or a combination of all these three, so long as the company in question is state of the art in their ability to understand and communicate with the consumer