Women's Health and the Healthcare Pharmaceutical Industry

Women are Increasingly Attractive to Pharma

“With osteoporosis there is a high patient population and high revenue potential,” notes Williams. “Lots of companies have drugs for osteoporosis treatment and prevention in their pipelines, but there are only a few companies (Eli Lilly and Novartis) that seem to be focusing on a long-term product line in this area.”

You can hardly blame big pharma for going after big fish. But this cherry-picking approach to portfolio management misses the advantage of building long-term advantage. Perhaps more than in any other therapeutic area, women’s health offers great opportunities in building up a franchise and winning lasting loyalty. A franchise melds marketing and portfolio management. In other words, a company develops a reputation or umbrella brand for its entire range of women’s health products.

Some manufacturers like Wyeth, Schering and Johnson & Johnson already have a reputation for women’s health expertise. However, this status tends to be based on a single aspect of women’s health, such as HRT for Wyeth, or contraception for Schering. Moreover, these companies do not seem to be broadening their women’s health offering any more coherently than their rivals. “Wyeth has the biggest range of products for women’s conditions, and Organon, which has traditionally focused on contraceptives, is trying to move into osteoporosis. But in terms of developing a whole female focus to a portfolio, I don’t think anyone has got a female specific strategy,” Willams observes.

Indeed, since its drop in sales of HRT drugs Premarin and Prempro following negative trial results in 2001, Wyeth has placed more emphasis on its CNS (central nervous system) portfolio. Whether the company intends to pursue female niches in CNS disorders (following Eli Lilly’s lead after it launched Sarafem -- the same drug as Prozac -- to treat premenstrual dystrophic disorder) is not yet clear.

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