Drugs' Image May Have To Change, Says HMRF Chief

The pharmaceutical industry has always built up a portfolio of productsrather than a range of brands - in contrast to the major consumer industries. This may have to change, Olivier Jacquesson, president of Hoechst Marion Roussel France has told a conference in Paris, organized by the French financial daily Les Echos.

He argued that the secondary preoccupation with the importance of the brand was linked to the structure of the drug market. The pharmaceutical sector is characterized by: the historic dominance of high-margin ethical drugs; the single independent decision maker, the doctor; a system of financing and health spending which is scarcely controlled by those who actually pay; and a patient, or rather consumer, who, too often, is ignored and absent when the decisions are made on consumption.

Entire Marketing Is Changing Meanwhile, Mr Jacquesson noted that the entire market structure is changing on every front. There is economic change, he said, through: current health reform measures; mergers and the search for critical size at the company level; segmentation of drug markets; and a situation in which the patient-consumer is becoming increasingly proactive.