Transformation in Trials

Brian D Smith: Changing your DNA to pursue a novel business model

Season 1 Episode 8

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Could a chimpanzee become a business school professor? He could, if you changed his DNA. In this episode we talk about how to change the DNA of the organization to pursue a new business model - and why that is such a hard thing to do.  

In this episode we speak to a true industry expert and expert on the industry. Starting as a lab chemist in 1978 and spending 15 years in marketing and strategy and now a practicing academic, Brain D Smith is considered The World's Leading Authority on the Evolution of the Pharma and Medtech Industry.  

In this episode we take an evolutionary view and examine why the industry has such a hard time changing - but also about how much has changed already. We now speak about oncology and no longer refer to specific organ cancers as separate diseases. We no longer measure value solely in the superior efficacy to comparator drugs, but health economic value in general. 

We talk about speciation of the business models in pharma - how we have gone from having one predominant model when most drugs were based on small molecules, to now having 26 distinct business models. This creates an urgency for pharmaceutical companies to select a strategy pursuing one of these models - and change the business accordingly. 

This might have something to do with discrimination in what science is important in the industry. Whereas natural sciences are highly valued - management science is sometimes treated as something to pick up via osmosis. 

“It is difficult to be excellent at something when you do not have a common vocabulary” 

- Brian D Smith


Guest Notes

Guest Professor Brian D Smith: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drbriandsmith/ 

and his practice Pragmedic: http://www.pragmedic.com/ 

Reach out on Twitter: https://twitter.com/profbriandsmith 

or directly to brian.smith@pragmedic.com 


Books

Amazon author page with details of all 8 books 

Upcoming book ready for pre-order: New Drugs, Fair Prices: Managing the Pharmaceutical Innovation Ecosystem for Sustainable and Affordable New Medicines


Articles for download

Building the future

Back to the future

Selection pressures

Choosing destiny  

Explosive evolution


Abbre


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