Zombie economy. Zombie industries. Zombie companies. It’s become the year of the living dead. And pessimists worry that it may become a decade of the dead if the American economy follows the path of Japan in the nineties. A recent Harvard Business Review podcast predictably labeled the Detroit Big Three as a zombie industry. The speaker then went on to suggest Pharma was a zombie industry as well; just going through the motions, neither thriving or evolving to meet the challenges of the economy and competition.

Drug Delivery has in some ways gone through its own decade of the dead since the
acquisition of Alza. Because one size does not fit everyone we need to think about what business models best fit Drug Delivery for the next decade. Is it a fee-for-service model? Is it Specialty Pharma “lite”? Is it a private or public structure? How can Drug Delivery best deliver profits and improve the standard of health care? And if we can identify a great business model what do we need to do to execute it profitably?

The answers won’t come from sitting in your office and waiting for it to arrive in an
email or a blog post (much less a tweet). Clues to the right answer for your company
will arrive in an “aha” moment while listening to people with new ideas, and while asking
them the tough questions. It will come from meeting your colleagues and competitors
at industry focused conferences and debating ideas, facts and figures.