Agenda: Day 1  | Day 2  |

      Andrew Jack, Pharmaceuticals Correspondent, Financial Times

As governments continue in their efforts to reduce their escalating healthcare costs, they are gradually reducing the price they are willing to pay for pharmaceutical products. The resulting fall in revenues is forcing a growing number of life science companies to reassess their commitment to R&D, and to move a growing proportion of their research efforts to emerging markets. The implications for the future of life science companies and their business models, for the continuing western dominance of innovation, and for patent access to new medicine is profound. Is there a future for the research led pharma company?

Emerging markets will play an increasingly important role in the strategies of life science companies in the years ahead. With an estimated 50% of future sales coming from emerging markets by 2050, and the life science companies of these countries strengthening their capabilities in R&D, they will become an increasingly important source of external growth and innovation for the future. The key to successfully harnessing the potential of these markets is moving "beyond the pill" to becoming partners in local healthcare solutions, and engaging them more fully as partners in resolving the industry's overwhelming innovation challenge. What are the broader implications of the potential shift to a low-cost, high-volume business in emerging markets for the future of the life science company?

In their bid to replenish their faltering R&D pipelines, life science companies are resorting to an ever broadening range of innovative financing and partnership models which are allowing them access to promising early stage research and to share the risks and costs of new drug development. In so doing, they are rewriting the rules of competition in the industry, transforming their capital base, and potentially laying the grounds for more stable and long- term funding for innovation. As pharma companies continue along the path of open innovation, is the new era of competition in life sciences "the battle of the networks" ? 

In a dramatic reversal of fortune for an industry once revered as the world's most profitable, life science companies are now frequently rated lower than many consumer goods companies, and are often criticised by investors when they increase their spending on R&D. How are life science CFOs responding to the changing perceptions of the industry, and what are the strategies they are adopting to grow and build the value of their companies?

      Andrew Jack, Pharmaceuticals Correspondent, Financial Times

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