New era, same questions new quandary
In his opening address at last weeks eyeforpharmas Forecasting Excellence Europe conference in Madrid, session chair Alec Finney, principle consultant for Rivershill Consulting, told attendees that the two biggest concerns in the industry at the moment are that: (1) pharma is in an unprecedented state of flux and (2) it could be the end of pharma as we know it.
The funny thing, Finney says, is that these are the same concerns that have been highlighted at pharma conferences across the past 20 years.
Despite the long-running presence of the issues, however, he says they are still perfectly valid concerns for today.
The role of the forecaster is to be able to determine or differentiate between the signal and the noise that the pharma industry creates, Finney says. Theres a lot of chatter a lot of publications a huge amount of information. And what we have to distill out of that is whats actually happening. What will the consolidation of the pharma business hold for us? Has it stopped, or how far will it move in the future?
Finney says forecasting helps us see whats real and to discern what is really hype.
But as youll read in todays feature on the talk given by Nich Guthrie, head of forecasting global marketing at AstraZeneca, forecasting not only predicts the future it changes it.
Thats a concept that as much as Ive read and heard about forecasting, Ive never seen verbalized quite so succinctly before. Hearing Nichs assertion was certainly an ah-ha moment for me. And it made me wonder just how many of us have contemplated that the minute we make a forecast and take a decision based on it, weve already altered everything we predicted. Are we factoring that into our forecasts?
Its a really interesting concept. So, be sure to read more about it in the article on Nichs talk and let us know what you think by adding your comments below.
Lisa Roner, editor, eyeforpharma