Research on Pharmaceutical Product Life Cycle Patterns for Sustainable Growth

Fumio Teramae, Tomohiro Makino, Shintaro Sengoku, Yeongjoo Lim, Takashi Natori and Kota Kodama
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Fumio Teramae: Graduate School of Technology Management, Ritsumeikan University, Osaka 567-8570, Japan
Tomohiro Makino: Graduate School of Technology Management, Ritsumeikan University, Osaka 567-8570, Japan
Shintaro Sengoku: School of Environment and Society, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo 152-8550, Japan
Yeongjoo Lim: Faculty of Business Administration, Ritsumeikan University, Osaka 567-8570, Japan
Takashi Natori: Graduate School of Technology Management, Ritsumeikan University, Osaka 567-8570, Japan
Kota Kodama: Graduate School of Technology Management, Ritsumeikan University, Osaka 567-8570, Japan

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 21, 1-13

Abstract: An important agenda of pharmaceutical companies is the establishment of therapeutic area strategies, drug modality, and geographic strategies for research and development. It is worthwhile to understand the changes in therapeutic area, modality and internationalization of the top-selling pharmaceutical drugs over the past. Hence, the purposes of this study are to investigate changes in therapeutic area, modality and internationalization of the top-selling drugs and to identify their life cycle patterns. We compared the top-selling drugs between 2011 and 2017, and found that the percentages of nichebuster cancer drugs and home region-oriented drugs have increased whereas the proportions of traditional blockbuster cardiovascular drugs and global drugs have decreased. We compared product life cycle patterns via a Kruskal–Wallis test, and identified the features of product life cycle patterns per therapeutic area and modality. We performed a case study on drugs in the same class with the same pharmacological mechanism but found no differences across cases. Our results provide insights into therapeutic area strategies that consider life cycle patterns and geographic strategies that consider the competitive advantages of home region-oriented drugs. Finally, we presented new and simple models of life cycle patterns. This approach may help such enterprises establish and maintain sustainable growth.

Keywords: case comparison; competitive advantage; pharmaceutical industry; product life cycle pattern; trend analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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