The pharmaceutical industry has long been driven by the demands of the North American and Western European markets, paying scant attention to emerging markets and the diseases more prevalent there.
Yet this pattern is changing. Emerging markets contributed 30 percent of the pharmaceutical industry’s value in 2008,1 and their pharma markets are forecast to grow by 14 percent a year to 2013.2,3 By contrast, the US market—still representing 40 percent of the global one—is expected to expand more slowly, with annual growth of less than 3 percent over the next four years. Indeed, all developed markets tend to be characterized by low or negative growth, a stricter regulatory environment, and increasing levels of patent litigation.
Not surprisingly, many pharmaceutical companies now see some of the largest emerging markets as the keys to their growth ambitions. Over the past ten years, these companies have established low-cost research institutions in emerging markets, tapped into their talent pools in search of innovation, and set up corporate-social-responsibility programs to help tackle neglected diseases. But more must be done if companies are to capture the opportunity.
Most still tend to regard emerging markets mainly as a source of lower-cost R&D. Instead,...