Angus Russell, Shire’s longtime CFO—now CEO—likens the failing US automobile industry to pharma. “All the problems with the automobile industry were a long time coming,” he says. “It’s just that the SUVs and the relatively cheap price of gas created a bubble, just like a booming economy and blockbusters.”

But now that the bubble has burst, pharma can expect what Russell predicted a decade ago: a more competitive industry, with greater focus on pharmacoeconomic data, ROI, and less tolerance for me-too drugs. “The economic miracle is over—there will be a struggle to survive in this industry,” he says.

Russell, a speaker at the Reuters healthcare conference today, breakfasted with Pharm Exec at the W Hotel, and offered a preview before tomorrow’s main event, the business update for its Human Genetic Therapies (HGT) business. The meeting will take place in HGT’s new Lexington, MA, headquarters, and with more than 1,000 employees (up from 300 in 2005), it will also provide a visual reminder of how this business is a growth engine for Shire. (more…)

There’s a lot of talk these days about India and China as potential markets and as sources for cheap manufacturing and R&D. But the real potential of these countries is far more interesting: As China and India (and Brazil, Russia, and Korea) learn to create new products, they’re going to do it at price points that make sense for their own domestic markets—which means substantially lower than US or European prices. The drugs they create may not measure up to the standards of approval in the developed world, but those standards, these days at least, have more to do with politics and preferences than they do with a practical risk/benefit ratio.

Let the emerging market come up with low-cost must-have medicines, though, and we’ll see how long the US fights to keep them out. A handful of sucessful medicines from India and China could end up doing a remarkable amount to transform the US drug industry and US drug regulation.

I finally met a pharm exec who’s pursuing that insight as a way to build his company, when Abe Abuchowski, founder and COO of Prolong Pharmaceuticals, stopped by to visit not long ago. You’ve probably heard Abe’s name already. (more…)