Life sciences industry - IBM

Intro to Life sciences industry:

Course structure:

1. Customers
2. Industry participants
3. Products and services
4. Business functions
5. Making money
6. Industry Regulations
7. Industry challenges
8.  Final test



1. Customers:
Patients: The ones who use the final products.
Providers: Hospitals, clinics etc. These are the primary customers for life sciences companies.
Payers: These are the organizations that pay for health care services. Insurance companies, gov agencies etc.

2. Industry participants:

i) Pharma companies: Discover, develop, manufacture, market and sell pharma drugs.
Ex: Pfizer, Abbott labs, Novartis, roche, GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi, Bayer etc.
Branded pharma companies: Discover, develop and mfg drugs.
Generic pharma companies:  Manufacture generic drugs
ii) Biotech firms: Primary focus is to discover, develop and mfg drugs and "in vitro diagnostics"(tests done on samples such as blood or tissue taken from human body). They are more focussed on only a few developments unlike pharma giants.
iii) Academic medical centers: Provide services to patients, do biomedical and clinical research, teach medical students.
iv) Lifesciences services companies: Provide services to pharma companies, bio companies, academic medical centers and gov medical institutes, hospitals etc.
v) Distributors: buy drugs form companies and sell them to providers like hospitals etc.
vi) Not-for-profit Entities: WHO etc.

3. Products and Services:

i) Drugs:
Synthetic vs Biologics: Former are made of chemicals and latter are produced by living cells.

Branded vs Generic: The mfg companies will have patent rights for former type of drugs for certain period. If they generate more than $1bn they are called "blockbuster drugs".
Once the patent expires any company can mfg that drug which are called generics. Generic medicine in biologics are called "Biosimilars"

ii) In Vitro diagnostics: Products and services used to test patient blood, urine and tissues for infection, disease and other conditions etc.
Products include: Analyzers, Reagents, Specialized software programs.

iii) Consumer care products: OTC drugs, nutritional drugs and personal health care products etc come under this.
iv) Animal health products:

4. Business function:
R&D
Quality and assurance
Sales and marketing


5. Making money:
Profit = Revenue - (Cost of goods + R&D + Sales and marketing + general administration + interests + Tax)
Revenue = Net sales + Royalties + Financial income

6. Industry regulation:

7: Industry challenges:
Pressure of profitability
Restructuring
Changes to R&D
Opportunities for growth
Advanced in science and technology.


Life sciences financial information:





































Comments