Death Knell for Big Pharma?

By Michael Shulman

Major Big Pharma Change No. 3

There is a pronounced shift to personalized and narrow-focus medicine. These are treatments that work on select groups of patients and are driven by research breakthroughs, especially in genomics. For example, personalized medicine is at the forefront of cancer research, meaning more drugs, with a limited patient group requiring more-specialized sales forces and training.

This is absolutely not the Big Pharma model. Those big dinosaurs need large patient populations, served by many physicians and supported by a large sales force. And this is a dilemma that Big Pharma can't lobby its way out of.

This trend is irreversible and, while it's most apparent with cancer, it is applicable to most large disease populations. This shift is further driven by diagnostic test developments that now tell a physician if a patient will respond to a specific treatment.

Conclusion

These three changes mean big trouble for Big Pharma.

The impact of patent expirations, a new administration in Washington and personalized medicine are increasingly sinking in on Wall Street and sinking Big Pharma.

The only thing Big Pharma can do is continue to buy up innovative biotechs that are willing to be acquired, and continue to throw its dwindling reserves of wealth at lobbyists in Washington and smoke screens up in front of investors.

So, is there any good news for investors coming out of Big Pharma's problems?

Yes. When money exits Big Pharma, a good deal of it will remain in the life sciences sector, and the first place it will go is to the big-cap and emerging biotechs.

Michael Shulman is Editor of ChangeWave Biotech Investor.

---

The biotech sector may be heating up, and you can get in on the profits. Find out how with your 90-day, risk-free trial to ChangeWave Biotech Investor. Click here to get started today.

---