Expenses surrounding R&D, production, regulatory compliance, marketing, and product distribution continue to increase. The cost of medication and various kinds of specialized health services continue to rise. In addition, the number of blockbuster drugs is dwindling, safety concerns are growing, and greater government intervention looms. All of this means that the value of and the return on investment for pharmaceutical consulting services are also increasing.
Staying competitive and profitable is getting tougher for pharmaceutical companies – especially smaller firms, as well as health care organizations. John R. Kimberly, Management Professor at Wharton University of Pennsylvania, warns that the “old model is dead, and big pharma is struggling to come to terms with what new model is going to work.” The trick then is figuring out exactly which of the myriad of potential solutions will enable companies to remain competitive and stay in the market. Added to that is the difficult task of determining exactly which pharmaceutical consulting firm will be the best fit and can provide the best solutions for a particular company.
Pharmaceutical consultancy is a relatively new species of consultancy. While most firms offer a fairly standard range of consulting services, there is some specialization within the field. PAREXEL Consulting, for example, leans toward the management pole, offering services in the areas of brand management, business development, clinical development, managed markets, medical affairs, sales, and trade and distribution. On the other hand, Maxim Group has more of an IT slant, and offers services such as IT strategic roadmap, IT utilization/value assessment, software package selection, software package implementation, and system integration. Then there are the pharmaceutical consulting firms, such as Smart Pharmaceutical Consulting, that fall somewhere in the middle, with their own niche areas of specialization owing to specific training and industry experience. Smart Consulting offers a broad range of services in several areas—vaccines, lean manufacturing, quality and compliance, drug/device combination products, FDA regulations, and FTC concerns—with special expertise and interest in quality compliance, quality audits, laboratory strategies, and manufacturing solutions.
While many of these same consulting services can be found in many other consulting firms, two things set Smart Consulting apart from the others: 1) their personnel/team and 2) their ability to view companies and problems from multiple perspectives, thereby formulating multiple possible solutions.
Nigel and Denise Smart, founders and managers of Smart Pharmaceutical Consulting, have over 45 years of combined experience in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry. They also possess complementary skill sets, which is illustrative of their entire team. Nigel has a chemistry, microbial/fermentation technology, and biochemical engineering background, and Denise a business and law background. Additionally, Smart Consulting has a network of other seasoned professionals with 118 years of combined industry experience and wide-ranging expertise on their team. Experience and expertise in areas such as:
• Analytical QC
• QA functions
• Regulatory/Legal
• Process development
• Manufacturing
• Project management
• Facilities
• Validation
• Clinical trial management
With their ability to take a comprehensive view of each pharmaceutical company and their unique problems, viewing them from various angles and multiple perspectives, the pharmaceutical consultants with Smart Consulting are able to discover, develop, and propose numerous possible solution options. They analyze and test ideas before defining a solution and make adjustments as necessary in these early stages. They then create multiple potential solutions and test to determine which one will be the best fit for the problem at hand. But they don’t leave it there. They also build expandable solutions that can evolve and remain valid as the business grows.
Ultimately, the right pharmaceutical consulting firm can provide the competitive edge you need to become the market leader in medical products. When the stakes are high, calling in Smart Pharmaceutical Consulting is not only the right move – it’s the smart move.
