Blue Matter Blog
May 22, 2023
When a patient receives a prescription from his or her doctor, the expectation is fairly straightforward: the pharmacy will have the medicine in stock and will be able to fulfill the prescription in short order. Of course, there are a host of “unseen” players operating behind the scenes that make all of that happen, including …
January 9, 2023
The University of Oxford is regularly ranked as the best in the world. However, it is widely accepted that the associated biotech landscape is not as advanced as comparable locations in the US. For example, Boston is well-established as an innovation hub while Oxford remains nascent. Nothing is permanent, though, and in a dynamic space …
December 19, 2022
The European healthcare system is constantly adapting to address the increasing cost of innovation in health technology, the changing needs of its citizens, and healthcare budgetary constraints. In 2022, Europe’s market access and health technology assessment policies have significantly changed. Here are three trends we anticipate will continue to impact healthcare pricing and reimbursement policy …
August 1, 2022
Different companies can have dramatically divergent journeys when they decide to enter European markets for the first time. They may be in various circumstances or stages of their corporate evolution when they decide to enter. Some companies think about Europe very early on while others prepare their strategies much closer to launch. Depending on each …
May 13, 2022
At some point in its development, any growth-minded non-European biopharma company will look to Europe as a possible source of new opportunity. Europe is attractive for various reasons, including its large population, high per-capita spend on healthcare, and vast market potential. But successfully entering Europe is a complex undertaking, and biopharma companies need to know …
April 12, 2022
At some point in its development, any growth-minded non-European biopharma company will look to Europe as a possible source of new opportunity. Europe is attractive for various reasons, including its large population, high per-capita spend on healthcare, and vast market potential. But successfully entering Europe is a complex undertaking, and biopharma companies need to know …
April 8, 2022
At some point in its development, any growth-minded non-European biopharma company will look to Europe as a possible source of new opportunity. Europe is attractive for various reasons, including its large population, high per-capita spend on healthcare, and vast market potential. But successfully entering Europe is a complex undertaking, and biopharma companies need to know …
March 28, 2022
At some point in its development, any growth-minded non-European biopharma company will look to Europe as a possible source of new opportunity. Europe is attractive for various reasons, including its large population, high per-capita spend on healthcare, and vast market potential. But successfully entering Europe is a complex undertaking, and biopharma companies need to know …
March 27, 2022
At some point in its development, any growth-minded non-European biopharma company will look to Europe as a possible source of new opportunity. Europe is attractive for various reasons, including its large population, high per-capita spend on healthcare, and vast market potential. But successfully entering Europe is a complex undertaking, and biopharma companies need to know …
February 25, 2022
At some point in its development, any growth-minded non-European biopharma company will look to Europe as a possible source of new opportunity. Europe is attractive for various reasons, including its large population, high per-capita spend on healthcare, and vast market potential. But successfully entering Europe is a complex undertaking, and biopharma companies need to know …
February 24, 2022
At some point in its development, any growth-minded non-European biopharma company will look to Europe as a possible source of new opportunity. Europe is attractive for various reasons, including its large population, high per-capita spend on healthcare, and vast market potential. But successfully entering Europe is a complex undertaking, and biopharma companies need to know …
November 10, 2021
At some point, any growth-minded non-European biopharma company will look to Europe as a possible source of new opportunity. Europe is attractive and offers vast market potential. But successfully entering Europe is a complex undertaking. The stakes are high and there are many pitfalls to avoid. In this series of articles, we’re outlining the 12 …
November 4, 2021
At some point in its development, any growth-minded non-European biopharma company will look to Europe as a possible source of new opportunity. Europe is attractive for various reasons, including its large population, high per-capita spend on healthcare, and vast market potential. But successfully entering Europe is a complex undertaking, and biopharma companies need to know …
October 27, 2021
At some point, any growth-minded non-European biopharma company will look to Europe as a possible source of new opportunity. Europe is attractive and offers vast market potential. But successfully entering Europe is a complex undertaking. The stakes are high and there are many pitfalls to avoid. In this series of articles, we’re outlining the 12 …
October 20, 2021
At some point in its development, any growth-minded non-European biopharma company will look to Europe as a possible source of new opportunity. Europe is attractive for various reasons, including its large population, high per-capita spend on healthcare, and vast market potential. But successfully entering Europe is a complex undertaking, and biopharma companies need to know …
October 12, 2021
As we’ve written many times before, Europe offers significant business opportunities for biopharmaceutical companies seeking to expand. Collectively, European countries represent the world’s second largest market for branded pharmaceuticals, just behind the United States. With more than 500 million people and $140 billion in annual branded pharmaceutical sales, Europe can be highly attractive. It offers …
July 22, 2021
The biotechnology industry is a booming sector with many new companies researching and developing innovative and specialized medicines. Typically, a startup biotech company will focus its limited resources on R&D and its market of origin (or some other region that’s strategically selected because of its large size and/or market potential). For a US-based company, that …
February 17, 2021
The most effective, groundbreaking, and revolutionary therapy in the world will not do much good if it can’t be effectively delivered to patients. That fact should be highly self-evident. However, establishing an effective supply chain is easier said than done and there are a lot of potential pitfalls, especially when dealing with the diverse and …
July 28, 2020
The Blue Matter Breakfast Club is an ongoing series of discussion forums (now virtual due to COVID-19), hosted by our team in Europe. These forums are by invitation, bringing together leading executives from biopharma companies and other organizations to discuss critical business issues. The fifth Breakfast Club meeting took place on 8th July 2020. The …
May 12, 2020
“Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.” That well-known quote comes from Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th president of the United States and former Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe. It’s a pithy quote—though perhaps a little overstated—that highlights the critical importance of planning for any serious undertaking. For a biopharmaceutical company, the …
March 17, 2020
Location, Location, Location: Most regard that as the first rule of real estate. Simply put, it refers to the fact that a home’s value can vary dramatically based solely on its location. Nice neighborhood with good schools, low crime, and beautiful tree-lined streets? In a place like that, a home will command a much higher …
March 3, 2020
When a non-EU-based biopharmaceutical company decides to establish a presence in Europe, there are seemingly countless items that need to be managed, ranging from the highly strategic to the mundane. One of the most important items is building the European team. In the previous article, we outlined five ways in which hiring and recruiting differ …
March 2, 2020
“Our people are our greatest asset.” That statement is a time-honored cliché in the business world. However, clichés typically come about for a reason: They’re usually true. No biopharmaceutical company can move into Europe without recruiting and hiring talent there. Obviously, those are essential steps to building a local presence anywhere. In this installment of …
February 24, 2020
Basic and Essential For any biopharma company planning an initial move into Europe, there are myriad issues to address, as this series outlines. One of the most important is ensuring that a company’s product(s) will be reimbursed by the various national payers that exist throughout European markets. It’s a basic truth: Payers are vital to …
February 19, 2020
Why a Europe-Tailored Strategy is Important When a biopharmaceutical company decides to enter the “European market,” it’s important to recognize that Europe is not really a single market. Aside from having the European Medicines Agency (EMA) as common regulatory body, the European Union (EU) is actually a combination of 27 markets, each with a differentiated …
January 20, 2020
When entering European markets, a biopharma company must do a range of important things, many of which we will address throughout this series. In this installment, we cover two foundational elements of any European market entry that can set the commercial playing field for years to come. They are 1.) Securing intellectual property (IP) protection …
November 8, 2019
The Blue Matter Breakfast Club is an ongoing series of quarterly two-hour breakfast forums, hosted by our Rare Diseases Team. These forums bring together leaders from companies that develop and commercialize rare disease therapies to discuss critical business issues. The third Breakfast Club meeting was on 5th November 2019 at Skylounge restaurant in Zug, Switzerland. …
August 26, 2019
For US-based biopharmaceutical companies seeking to expand, establishing a presence in Europe is usually an obvious next step. Investors typically expect that a company will avail itself of such a large market opportunity and unlock the full commercial value of its assets. Europe represents the second largest market in the world for prescription pharmaceuticals. The …