Look on the Web and in your favorite news magazines or newspapers today. I challenge you to find anything positive about the drug industry. It’s typically the same bad news about quality or compliance failures, failures to innovate effectively or gain approval for new drugs, adverse patient reactions, unfortunate management decisions or corporate greed.

Then there’s the news about stagnant industry growth. As Chemical & Engineering News reported last month, Big Pharma sales fell by 1% last year, and AstraZeneca’s earnings fell by nearly 27% and sales by over 8%.

Results were quite different for biotech companies, but that is not the whole story. Today, most of the growth in pharma innovation is happening in small to mid-sized companies, more of whom are partnering and outsourcing key functions to CMOs and CROs. 
Coincidence?

The top 10 most innovative companies in pharma today are  Vertex, Reckitt Benckiser, Actelion, Celgene, Gilead, Endo, Shire, Chiesi, Otsuka and Hisamitsu, according to IMS Health data.

What drives them?  Fortunately, we have some insight into Vertex, number one on this list, in the form of two books written by journalist Barry Werth, who has tracked the company closely for over 20 years. “The Antidote: Inside the World of New Pharma,” which was published in February, follows  Vertex’s growth, updating  Werth’s previous book, “The Billion-Dollar Molecule.“

As Werth writes, Vertex’s is the story of “a group of entrepreneurial young scientists who left the world’s best drug company, the most admired business in America year after year—(that’s Merck)—because they were confident they would be more productive on their own, starting from scratch.  They aimed to design better drugs, atom by atom.”

The company, started by Joshua Boger in what had once been a construction company garage in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has commercialized its first therapies, but also pioneered the use of new and different ways of doing things. It is using science to help ensure that development projects are on the right track earlier. Process analytical technologies (PAT) and Quality by Design (QbD) are staples in its drug development and manufacturing tool kit, as we’ve heard at conferences for the past few years, from scientists such as Martin Warman, who once led PAT efforts at Pfizer. How many Big Pharma and generics companies can say that they’re using these tools routinely?

Vertex is now working on some projects that would enable continuous processing in finished dosage manufacturing. So it is extending scientific innovation to all parts of the pharmaceutical value chain, not just the clinical and research side, so beloved by Wall Street but the less glamorous world of scaleup and manufacturing.

It’s also a company that relies on effective outsourcing and partnering to make things happen. Vertex’s growth suggests that the right approach to partnering, and the right partners, can extend a company’s innovation. 

But innovation ultimately depends on passion and fearlessness. Boger and his team brought that spirit to Vertex, and it will be interesting to see what happens as its story continues to unfold.

On a personal level, I’m excited to join Contract Pharma’s team. Gil Roth brought passion to this magazine, which he’s extending in new efforts in outsourcing.  I also feel passionate about the fact that the drug industry is full of smart, altruistic and driven people whose products have made a difference in the world, and whose stories are positive and need to be heard.

Whether you work for an operating name brand or generic pharma company, or a CRO or CMO, anywhere in the world, I hope you’ll share your stories, opinions and best practices with us. Please drop me a line at [email protected].


Agnes Shanley, Editor
[email protected]

---

What I’m Reading
Pharma-related
The Antidote by Barry Werth
Comment: I ’m halfway through and it’s a fascinating read about the people, challenges and intrigues that have shaped Vertex so far.

General
The Disaster Artist by Greg Sestero
Comment: An entertaining look at Tommy Wiseau and the creation of “the greatest bad movie ever,” with lessons for those who lead.