Sir,
Andrew Jack's article "Downsizing Pfizer is setting industry's agenda" (January 24) raises some interesting questions about changes in the "merger mania" model and the role/size of future sales forces. Big Pharma has to reduce drastically the development and manufacturing costs of drugs and related drug delivery devices in the future, not only by cost-cutting but also by implementing performance improvements continuously throughout the development and manufacturing life cycle.
However, there is still a culture that resists change in an established manufacturing process for fear of regulatory intervention, and until regulatory departments relax their grip on the throat of manufacturing, continuous performance improvement will remain choked and never achieve the efficiencies it has across other high-volume manufacturing industries.
Pharmaceutical companies must work hand in hand with regulatory bodies to help them understand and recognise the need for continuous improvement programmes on a scale that we have seen in more traditional engineering fields but which have yet to be achieved in the pharmaceutical industry.
Phil Seeney,
PA Consulting Group,
Cambridge Technology Centre,
Cambridge,
Royston, Herts SG8 6DP
