Clinical Supply Packaging For Biological Products eBook

The Healthcare Industry

With the healthcare industry coming under increasing pressure to reduce costs and keep within tight budgets, physicians are finding it ever more difficult to account for the large cost of biologics products for their patients, with more and more companies struggling to justify the high process for any but the most novel drugs.

Biopharmaceuticals are among the most sophisticated and elegant achievements of modern science.

Rather than the small chemical molecule typically manufactured by chemical synthesis, these large complex structures are manufactured within genetically modified living cells. Each of the steps in the manufacturing process are complex and often specific to the particular drug being manufactured, requiring sophisticated manufacturing processes, expertise and significant financial investment to ensure that any alterations do not have a negative impact on the efficacy of the drug resulting in an unwanted immune response in the patient.

The advantages of biologics over their small molecule predecessors are not without their costs however. Their safety and efficacy, coupled with the success in treating patients living with serious illness, empowers pharma companies to command high prices, on average 22 times that of small molecules.