Taming The Big Pharma Monster - Welsh Businessman

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Taming The Big Pharma Monster

by speaking truth to power

By Hedley Rees

Hedley Rees’s forty years’ experience in the pharma industry has led to this exposé of an industry in denial. Uncompromising on facts and evidence, Taming The Big Pharma Monster, stands out in a sea of books trying to skewer Big Pharma because it offers a practical solution. The author’s experience is vast. He entered the pharma industry in 1980, the year before the birth of the blockbuster era, and his first book for Wiley – Supply Chain Management in the Drug Industry: Delivering Patient Value for Pharmaceuticals and Biologics, has been published in more than 70 countries. Hedley Rees is not focused purely on problems but on exploring the solutions.

The pharmaceutical industry is in meltdown. We constantly hear of eye watering drug prices, shortages, litigation over damaging side effects, dodgy marketing practices, economic adulteration, consent decrees, counterfeiting, patent games, price gouging, and much, much more… How can this be right? The short answer is, it’s not.

But, how did it get to this? What can be done about it? This book answers those questions. Pharma got in this state because pharmaceutical companies were seduced by science, twice. Firstly, by the myth that is penicillin, and secondly, by a battle between two stomach ulcer drugs in the 1980s. Those seductions led the industry to believe the route to riches lay in patenting molecules, and clever sales and marketing. The result is what we see today, marketing muscle-pushing brands on healthcare professionals, and patent law suits between already rich pharma behemoths arguing over their share of the spoils.

Whilst this is not the first time this has been said – there are so many books knocking the industry – none offer a solution to the problems…. Until now; and it is a very simple solution. We should stop believing medicines are different to all other products on sale in the market, because they are not. Yes, science is an important component in bringing a medicine to the world, but it takes a healthy dose of engineering skills to get them there too, and the application of those skills is sadly lacking in pharma. The system for producing and supplying a medicine to market should be no different to an aero-engine, automobile or silicon chip.

· The book is a companion to a change initiative starting in Wales that involves educating users of medicines of the ins and outs of pharma.

· The output of the conference will be a white paper to go to the House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee Clerk for circulation to their Committee Members.

· The next step will be the creation of a not-for-profit called MEDS: Economical, Designed, Safe. The mission will be to provide information and support to patients and patient groups, so they can ask searching questions of whoever needs to act to reverse the decline in the medicines industry.

About the author

Hedley Rees is managing consultant at PharmaFlow Limited, a UK based consultancy specialising in operations and supply chain management within life science. Assignments span early stage clinical trial supply chains up to complex multi-product supply networks covering global territories. Hedley held senior positions at Bayer UK, British Biotech, Vernalis, Johnson & Johnson and OSI Pharmaceuticals. His skill set covers the range of competencies from strategic procurement, production and inventory control, distribution logistics, information systems and improvement.

As an expert in production systems design and implementation, Hedley is a zealous advocate of the regulatory modernisation frameworks of FDAs 21st Century Modernization (Janet Woodcock MD) and the International Council for Harmonisation (ICH).

He graduated from the University of Wales as a production engineer and holds an Executive MBA from Cranfield University School of Management. Hedley lives in Bridgend, South Wales.

ESSENTIAL DETAILS

Title: Taming The Big Pharma Monster: By speaking truth to power

Author: Hedley Rees

Genre: Healthcare, Pharmaceuticals, Medicine, Business

Publisher: Filament

Publication: May 28, 2019

Availability: Paperback & eBook, International

ISBN: 9781912635917

Price: £14.99 paperback

Author website:

pharmaflowltd.com

Twitter: twitter.com/HedleyRees