諾華制藥CEO:中國(guó)蘊(yùn)藏大商機(jī)
????眼下掌舵一個(gè)全球巨頭企業(yè)是福是禍?美國(guó)出臺(tái)的《平價(jià)醫(yī)療法案》旨在通過擠壓供應(yīng)商的利潤(rùn)空間來實(shí)現(xiàn)自己承諾的平價(jià)醫(yī)療,身陷困境的歐洲各國(guó)政府也紛紛削減醫(yī)療和藥品開支,這無(wú)疑是制藥業(yè)不愿聽到的壞消息。好消息是,隨著“嬰兒潮”一代人步入老齡,就在他們最需要的時(shí)候,現(xiàn)代醫(yī)學(xué)技術(shù)在治療一些頑疾上不斷傳來捷報(bào)。比如瑞士諾華公司(Novartis)就研制出了突破性的抗白血病藥品格列衛(wèi)(Gleevec),同時(shí)諾華公司的產(chǎn)品線里也有伊克塞錠(Excedrin)和感冒藥Theraflu等常用藥品。這家公司的掌門人、53歲的喬?吉莫內(nèi)斯近日接受了《財(cái)富》雜志(Fortune)記者吉奧夫?科爾文的采訪,探討了如何治療癌癥,如何獲得最好的研發(fā)成果,以及為何規(guī)模正在縮小的俄羅斯市場(chǎng)反而被視為增長(zhǎng)中的市場(chǎng)等問題。采訪摘錄如下: ????問:諾華公司是藥品研究領(lǐng)域的一個(gè)大玩家,它在哪些領(lǐng)域的研究前景最好? ????未來5到10年,從藥品研發(fā)上看,腫瘤學(xué)將成為獲得重大醫(yī)學(xué)突破的領(lǐng)域之一。大家將見證抗腫瘤技術(shù)的激增。人類基因組的深度測(cè)序以及該技術(shù)成本的降低,已經(jīng)為我們積累了大量的數(shù)據(jù),使我們可以在很多前所未有的領(lǐng)域進(jìn)行研發(fā)。同時(shí)我認(rèn)為,再生醫(yī)學(xué)也將成為未來10年內(nèi)的一個(gè)重點(diǎn)。隨著人們漸漸衰老,肌肉萎縮、視力萎縮和聽力萎縮變得非常普遍。而新技術(shù)的大量出現(xiàn)將使我們得以在這些領(lǐng)域進(jìn)行研究,同時(shí)開發(fā)出革命性的新藥品。 ????聽起來醫(yī)學(xué)研究的本質(zhì)正在發(fā)生變化。如果說現(xiàn)在我們要分析以前不存在的海量數(shù)據(jù),是不是對(duì)新的專業(yè)知識(shí)提出了要求? ????的確如此。考慮到海量的數(shù)據(jù),生物信息學(xué)的能力變得非常重要,開發(fā)和真正理解這些數(shù)據(jù)的能力也很重要。例如,某些特定的變異會(huì)導(dǎo)致某種特定類型的癌癥。對(duì)于我們來說,這意味著IT正在成為藥品研發(fā)的一個(gè)非常重要的部分。未來要想實(shí)現(xiàn)醫(yī)療技術(shù)的進(jìn)步,必須要把醫(yī)療、科學(xué)和信息技術(shù)三者合而為一。 ????美國(guó)醫(yī)療支出的增長(zhǎng)率不可能繼續(xù)維持在當(dāng)前水平,它的增長(zhǎng)率一定會(huì)下降。這對(duì)于大型制藥企業(yè)究竟是好事還是壞事? ????首先,這是一件必要的事,因?yàn)獒t(yī)療支出不可能維持當(dāng)前的增長(zhǎng)率,尤其是在美國(guó)。我們必須有牢固的財(cái)政基礎(chǔ)。同時(shí),藥品開支大概只占總體醫(yī)療支出的15%。占醫(yī)療支出大頭的是住院費(fèi)、診療費(fèi)、護(hù)理費(fèi)等。所以我不認(rèn)為這對(duì)制藥企業(yè)一定就是好事或者壞事。 ????我們的任務(wù)是開發(fā)創(chuàng)新性的、革命性的藥品,如果我們開發(fā)的藥品能夠改變某些疾病領(lǐng)域的療法,這些藥品自然會(huì)收回成本。同一種藥物,各家公司競(jìng)相推出療效更好的新品的現(xiàn)象可能會(huì)消失,但是對(duì)于重大的突破性藥物,它們一定能收回成本。 ????諾華當(dāng)然有自己的辦法來實(shí)現(xiàn)醫(yī)療突破、研發(fā)重磅藥物,而且諾華的方法可能和其它公司不一樣,你能描述一下諾華的方法嗎? |
????Is now a great time or an awful time to be running a global pharmaceutical giant? The bad news is that the U.S. Affordable Care Act aims to achieve much of its promised savings by squeezing payments to suppliers, and strapped European governments are trying to reduce their health care and drug payments. The good news is that medical science keeps gaining ground on the most dreaded conditions just as baby boomers are reaching ages when they need help the most. The job of Joe Jimenez, 53, is to navigate that world for Novartis (NVS), the Swiss maker of drugs such as the breakthrough leukemia treatment Gleevec and consumer brands including Excedrin and Theraflu. He talked recently with Fortune's Geoff Colvin about beating cancer, getting the most from R&D, why a shrinking Russia is a growing market, and much else. Edited excerpts: ????Q: Novartis is a major player in pharmaceutical research. What are the areas of greatest promise? ????Oncology is going to be an area of great medical breakthroughs in pharmaceutical development in the next five to 10 years. You're seeing technology explode. The deep sequencing of the human genome and how inexpensive that has become have created a wealth of data that will allow new areas of discovery that have never been possible before. ????I also think regenerative medicine will be a growth area over the next 10 years. As people age, muscle loss becomes very common, as do sight and hearing loss. And the explosion of technology is allowing us to discover and develop innovative new medicines in those areas. ????It sounds as if the nature of medical research is changing. If it's analyzing vast quantities of data that never used to be available, then doesn't that call for new areas of expertise? ????It does. If you think about the amounts of data that are now available, bioinformatics capability is becoming very important, as is the ability to mine that data and really understand, for example, the specific mutations that are leading to certain types of cancers. For us, what it's meant is that IT has become a very important part of drug discovery. In the future, you're going to have to meld medical, scientific, and information technologies to create medical advancements. ????In the U.S. the growth of health care spending cannot continue at the current rate. The rate of growth has to come down. Is that fundamentally a good thing or a bad thing for a big pharmaceutical company? ????First of all, it's a necessary thing because we can't continue to see these increases in spending, particularly in the U.S. We have to get on a very solid financial footing. At the same time, pharmaceuticals are generally 15% or less of total health care spending. The big areas of spending in health care are hospitalization, physicians, nursing care. So I don't think it's necessarily good or bad for a pharmaceutical company. ????Our mission is to discover and develop new and innovative medicines, and if we are developing these new medicines that can change the practice of medicine in certain disease areas, then those drugs will be reimbursed. What will go away most likely is the incrementally better new drug that comes out. But for the big medical breakthroughs, I think there will be reimbursement. ????Novartis has a way of pursuing those medical breakthroughs, getting to blockbuster drugs, that seems to be different from what some other companies are doing. Can you describe that approach? |