Pharma can already choose from a wide variety of outsourced marketing services. Companies have begun to establish partnerships with various vendors offering traditional (onshore) or nearshore and offshore outsourcing services. The industry already outsources ongoing, repetitive tasks through offshore research centres. They have also begun to outsource largescale programmes to vendors, such as international training and education during major product launches.
Rapidly escalating R&D costs, increased risks for approved products, cut-throat price competition, relentless threats from generics and biosimilars and potential intellectual property infringements mean that pharma must continue to increase efficiency and effectiveness. Companies will therefore continue to take advantage of all forms of outsourcing that help reduce costs and time and make better decisions.
Pharma needs to focus on the essential and core (marketing) activities and excel at their execution. All other areas can be outsourced – reducing vertical integration in the pharmaceutical (marketing) value chain. This has already occurred in many other manufacturing and services industries, such as automotive and information technology. However, in pharma industry, the observed trends emerged much later, as it has to overcome its traditional make (vs. buy) bias, especially for marketing activities that represent a major source of value creation.
