What is Value?

The question of value seems to be ever changing, which makes giving an answer particularly difficult. Here are some of the areas I hear value applied to:



The question of value seems to be ever changing, which makes giving an answer particularly difficult. Here are some of the areas I hear value applied to:

Value to the Customer (GPs and Health Authorities being the two major groups in this catagory).

Value to the patient

Improving integral product value

Improving the value of pharma itself

Proving value for market access

I suggest all these are seperate issues that need serious thought. Of course they are related, but creating value is different to proving value, what a GP, a patient and a health authority find of value are different, and improving the value of a product is a different proposition to doing it for a huge multi-national company.

So where should pharma start? Well, it's an open question and one I hope will be commented on. However my own view is that you have to start with addressing the perceived lack of value pharma present in dealing with physicians. It's controversial I'm sure - without gaining market access the physician question is probably null and void anyway.

For me though, it represents something immediately redressable, tangible, and within the power of a great many people in the company. It means finding out what physicians want and need, and finding a way to deliver this to them, not just a product sales pitch.

This would have an immediate effect the on the percieved value of the product being offered, and help build up the reputation of a company as 'valuable' too.

Anyone with differing opinions? Which would you suggest is the 'best foot to put forward in tackling the issue of value?'