New Strategies for a Global Industry: The Case of the Pharmaceutical Industry

To succeed in the increasingly competitive pharmaceutical industry, some companies are consolidating through mergers and acquisitions. Other companies are diversifying into health care services such as pharmacy benefits, disease management, and health information systems. Still other companies are focused on product line depth and breadth as the answer to success. In essence, firms of similar size and with similar missions within the same industry have different articulations of value, and thus embark on markedly different strategic paths. Such strategic diversity by companies within the pharmaceutical industry is due to different perspectives on the industry and firm drivers related to global competitiveness, and the strategic levers offering the best path to market success. The analysis of drivers and levers related to global competitiveness in the pharmaceutical industry can be related to other industries in which many global companies compete in a high-stakes (e.g., high R&D costs and short product life cycles), high-risk (e.g., proper market selection and product differentiation), and high-reward (ROI) market.