Marcus Knöll, who holds a Ph.D. in pharmacy and heads Bosch Packaging Technology’s Pharma Service Solid, has been supporting customers in all development and production phases of solid dosage forms for the past 12 years. And he knows exactly what they need for a fast time-to-market: efficiency, quality and extensive experience in formulation development.
In Profile
What are your customers’ main concerns?
The pharmaceutical industry is dominated by a high cost pressure. This is not only true for production; it already starts in the development phase. A fast introduction of new products, in other words a fast time-to-market, is essential. Pharmaceutical manufacturers cannot afford any delays; competitors will overtake them. However, efficiency is not everything. At the end of the day, product quality also has to measure up.
What changes created this cost pressure?
For instance in Germany, the drug prescription process has changed fundamentally. In the past, doctors simply wrote the name of a given manufacturer’s product on the prescription, patients bought it at the pharmacy – and some producers made a lot of money. Later, pharmacists were obligated to offer a product from the bottom third of the price range. Today, it’s all up to the health insurance companies. They conclude agreements with one or more manufacturers for short time frames. This puts the manufacturers under enormous pressure to keep the unit price as low as possible, so they are rewarded the contract. We can see similar trends in various markets – either in calls for tenders, or other price-dropping mechanisms like state-dictated price caps.