---

Advertising Information | FAQs | About Us | Contact Us | Privacy Policy

---

---

Will Healthcare be Rationed or Rational?
A Case for Supporting Comparative Effectiveness Research

Guest Kim Slocum, President of KDS Consulting, LLC, and former Director, Strategic Planning & Business Development at AstraZeneca, talks about HIT mediated comparative effectiveness research as part of scenario-based strategic planning for the biopharma industry.

• Guest: Kim Slocum, President of KDS Consulting, LLC, and former Director, Strategic Planning & Business Development at AstraZeneca
• Live Streaming Audio Date: Wednesday, March 18, 2009, 2 PM Eastern US time.
• Live Streaming Audio Duration: 15 minutes
  
  
• Go to this Pharma Marketing Talk Segment Page at the time indicated above to listen to the LIVE show via streaming audio on the Web. You will also be able to participate in an online chat with the host and speakers to ask questions!

Background
PriceWaterhouse Coopers released its own vision for the industry's future "Pharma 2020: Marketing the Future, Which Path Will You Take?" This piece describes a world just over ten years from now in which pharmaceutical sales and marketing has been radically transformed. Most of the large sales forces that are still par for course in industry have vanished and have been replaced by smaller teams that feature members with strong medical backgrounds. The marketing skills needed to succeed also look much different in an environment where collaboration between payers and biopharmas is the norm, compounds are reimbursed on the basis of the value they bring to the market, and the concept of a pharmaceutical "brand" includes not just molecules but a suite of services designed to ensure that all the needed partnerships can function successfully.

This is a highly rational environment where evidence is king and features a health care system that is both willing and able to pay premium prices for greater demonstrated value. It features something very much akin to "comparative effectiveness review" (CER), which is much discussed these days in the face of the $1 billion-plus appropriation contained in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) to set up such a function here in the US.

Slocum will report on the recent meeting of the National Business Group on Health, which represents the nation's largest employers who provide health benefits and are sophisticated enough to influence health policy. The meeting was been a virtual "amen chorus" of supporters of HIT mediated comparative effectiveness review. The consumer cost shifting on steroids represented by high deductible health plans was in full view. Words aren't adequate to describe how ugly that would be for biopharmas if it becomes the "go to" approach (as it easily could if CER fails).

Some Questions/Topics to be Discussed

• What is "comparative effectiveness" research (CER) and how can it affect the delivery of healthcare in the US?
• What are the alternatives for healthcare reform?
• Why should pharmaceutical companies support CER and how will it affect pharmaceutical R&D and marketing?

Guest Bio

Kim Slocum is President of KDS Consulting, LLC, an organization devoted to helping health care organizations understand the environment in which they operate and assisting them in finding strategic, sustainable solutions to the business challenges they face. The company provides services to a growing list of clients including payers, providers, life sciences firms, information technology firms, trade associations, and health care industry advisory organizations.

Before founding KDS Consulting in July 2006, Mr. Slocum worked for more than thirty-three years as an employee of a variety of pharmaceutical, biotechnology and health care firms. Most recently he was Director of Strategic Planning and Business Development for AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals where helped to lead the company's effort to develop innovative tools to better understand and shape its external environment. Over his corporate career Mr. Slocum worked in a series of positions in sales, sales training, marketing, new product development, managed care marketing, disease management, health care consulting, strategic planning and externalization efforts.

In recent years, Mr. Slocum has become deeply involved with health care information technology. He is a Fellow Member of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), a former member of the Society's Board of Directors, a recipient of the Society's 2005 Board Service Award, and a recipient of the July 2005 "Spirit of HIMSS" award. He also continues to be active in health policy issues and among other activities he is the Chair Elect of the Board of Trustees for the Texas Health Institute in Austin, Texas.

Additional Resources

• SURVEY: Which Future US Health Care Scenario is Best for Pharma?

• Pharma 2020: Marketing the future - Which path will you take? This paper discusses how the industry is no longer being rewarded for incremental innovation, me-too products and selling the most pills. Companies need to add value to patients, and offer a package of products and health services that the market is willing to pay a premium for.