Diversity still needs to be looked at in pharma, CPhI report suggests

Gender equality in pharma was one of the main talking points at this year’s CPhI Worldwide, with steps still needed if the industry is to move forward.

During the event’s Women in Leadership Forum, speakers discussed how board rooms are now exploring how to improve gender equality.

The forum explored how inclusive workplaces are helping actively build corporate value over competitors. Panellist Melissa Rancourt, founder and chairman of Greenlight for Girls suggested that ‘diversity needs to be looked at in all aspects’ if pharma is to take the next step forward.

More so, Kathy Teoh, global diversity & inclusion consultant at DSM, stated how future-fit workplaces will increasingly take a ‘collaborative approach to leadership and transition away from the command and control management models’.

This year, CPhI Worldwide saw over 48,000 visitors attend the show, with over 170 countries represented.

CPhI Worldwide’s agenda, which explored value-added medicines, preventive drugs, the patient experience and more, indicated a strong year ahead for pharma in 2020.

Indeed, CPhI Worldwide’s own Pharma Index an aggregated confidence score across all aspects of pharma in the largest economies – rose by 2.48%. Perhaps more significantly, overall ‘growth potential’ was perceived to have risen by an impressive 5.4% across the top 10 pharma nations, which bodes well for the industry through 2020.

Some key trends to emerge from this year’s show included the potential increase in value-added medicines, such as using existing molecules in new therapies for novel applications.  

Aurelio Arias, IQVIA senior consultant and panellist in the “Future of Medicine: What Are the Therapies of Tomorrow?” session, suggested that a primary driver is the cost of novel therapies, which is putting ever-increasing pressure on healthcare budgets. Similarly, Thomas Solbach, managing director and partner at strategy&, believes that the future of healthcare will be disrupted by patient driven technology, with emphasis on preventive medicine, early diagnostics and the patient experience.

A rise in the number of dedicated CMOs that provide cell or gene therapy services was also identified by experts as another trend. Taking part in the session “Understanding the Cell and Gene Technology Opportunity”, Fiona Barry, associate editor at GlobalData’s PharmSource, states that advanced therapies still present fundamental challenges including pricing and reimbursement, regulatory requirements and immature manufacturing technologies.

Orhan Caglayan, brand director at CPhI Worldwide added: “This year we saw another record breaking 48,961 attendance, and the industry is looking extremely healthy across the board – from NCEs and generics to finished product and API manufacturing. There’s a real confidence in all segments of the industry. Pharmaceutical machinery also made significant strides this year, with double the number of exhibitors we have seen in any other year. Next year, we will be hosting CPhI Worldwide in Milan for the first time in over a decade. It is the ideal time to return to Italy, as the industry in this country reaches record production volumes, and coupled with the wider macro trends, we anticipate a hugely successful 2020 for both the pharma industry and CPhI Worldwide.”