The Great Rx Marketing-Science Divide

Big Pharma must increasingly look to niche products, rather than blockbusters, to solve its growth problems. With a growing body of research demonstrating that major diseases like rheumatoid arthritis are, in fact multiple diseases requiring different therapeutic regiments, the once-size-fits-all paradigm will be superseded by one emphasizing more targeted drugs. This will require that drug companies look both internally and externally for a number of therapeutics, which individually will be relatively limited in market, but as a group could create a highly profitable business. Indeed, a key to success will be creating franchises of multiple products for symptomatically related conditions.