Porter's Five Forces Analysis Pharmaceutical Industry

PORTERS FIVE FORCES ANALYSIS - PHARMA INDUSTRY Using Porter's Five Forces we can analyse the scope of the pharmaceutical industry. It looks into five factors namely, competitive rivalry, threat of new entrants, threat of substitute products, bargaining power of suppliers and bargaining power of customers. " Competitive rivalry: The pharmaceutical industry is highly fragmented with almost 3,000 pharma companies and 10,500 manufacturing units. Due to increasing demand of high-quality drugs, low-to-moderate entry barrier to the new entrant, the presence of a number of large and small firm this market is highly competitive. With more drugs going off - patent, growth opportunities for the industry are expected to increase dramatically as generic

A company needs to go through extensive regulatory approval, licensing, high financial backing and investment, an effective distribution network, brand patents and strong brand presence make it a difficult industry to enter or exit. This is why the threat of a new entrant is low to moderate to existing companies. Based on factors mentioned above. But now many pharmaceutical companies are progressing in the market by shifting from traditional business approach to emerging new business approach. The new business technique includes contract research (drug discovery and clinical trials), contract manufacturing and co-marketing alliance. Many new companies to enter the market without burden of costly tasks such as research and development, clinical trials and manufacturing of drugs. Moreover, patent expiry is one of the reasons which is offering opportunities for lower cost generic manufacturer in terms of greater market access. Additionally, the government has increased their focus on healthcare cost cutting. It is creating pressure on the authority to allow early introduction of low-cost drugs in the

Allopathic medicines do not have many substitutes unless one counts homeopathic and ayurvedic treatments. Within the industry, one company can be replaced by another through generic drugs. In unbranded markets, one drug can replace the other but in branded markets, where the medical practitioner subscribes the medicines to the patients, he can replace one drug with another. " Bargaining power of the supplier: The bargaining power of suppliers in the market is low. Pharmaceutical products require various types of organic chemical. There are a number of chemical suppliers present in the market. Instead of buying chemicals at the high cost, pharma companies can switch from one company to other. For specific APIs where the sourcing of raw materials is difficult, suppliers have a higher bargaining power but since most raw materials are easily available and suppliers are numerous, where one can easily replace the other, their bargaining power is low. " Bargaining power of buyer: The buyer's bargaining power is moderate. There are many companies in market providing similar products. Because of this reason, buyers such as hospital and other healthcare organization have an option to