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Trends create business opportunities for those who can spot them. An example of how a trend creates opportunities is the pizza industry. Back in the early 1960s, pizza was primarily a snack food eaten in a restaurant. But by the 7

According to USFDA, a combination product is one composed of any combination of a drug and device; biological product and device; drug and biological product

0s, consumers were picking up pizza to eat at home and pizza delivery took off. As its popularity grew, competition increased. So did the marketing hype. Pizza is now available in every shape, size and convenience. Each time we at

; or drug, device, and biological product and fixed dose combination would include two or more combinations of drug.

Examples of combination products may in

e a pizza, we unwittingly participated in growing the trend, which is just a small slice of the fast food trend.

The pizza trend didn’t appear overnight nor was it the result of a savvy entrepreneur who envisioned the process. Th

lude drug-coated devices, drugs packaged with delivery devices in medical kits, and drugs and devices packaged separately but intended to be used together.

e trend built momentum as it went through stages of innovation, awareness creation and market adoption.

Would you invest in the pizza trend today? That all depends on where you believe the trend is heading – up or down.

With hin

here is enormous increase in the number of combination products entering the market in the recent years. Combination products have proven advantages but fixe

dsight, we can look at this trend and identify some of the factors that led to its growth: convenience, growing families, working moms, increased disposable income, swarms of hungry teens, delivery anywhere, anytime, etc. If you k

d dose combinations are still in the process of convincing regulatory authority on their advantages over the single ingredient formulations.

Combination pro

new these factors in the 1970s, the pizza business would have been a great investment. Knowing the factors that would grow the trend, you could position your business advantageously in the growth cycle.

In hindsight, can you iden

ucts have become life saving products for the pharmaceutical companies who doesn’t have many innovative molecules in their product pipeline and have been inc

tify other trends that would have made a great business opportunity? Of course! Hindsight is easy. The critical question is:

Can you change hindsight into foresight?

If future trends can be identified based on changing li

easingly used in the product life cycle management. Even the companies having product patents are trying to extend their product life cycle through the combi

festyles, then developing a business strategy based on those trends makes sense. Take the aging Baby Boomers for example. They are impacting the health industry with their concern over food quality, lifestyle issues and eating cho

nation products and maximize the revenues. But the companies involved in this practice are overlooking that they are burdening the patients both economically

ices. With a huge amount of disposable income and leisure time, social activities, travel and hobbies are of great interest. Since there are many more boomers on the way, it would be safe to assume that the market demand for healt

and physically. They need to rightly judge the benefits of the combination products and they have to even look at the risks involved when combining the produ

h-related products and leisure time activities will also substantially increase.

Identifying lifestyle trends is relatively easy. However, knowing how to market and serve them requires more thought. Most business owners are so ex

ts. Some of the combination products were well accepted by physicians while others suffered. Companies involved in development of combination products are fi

austed with making it through today that they postpone planning for tomorrow. To complicate their situation, business trends are also changing. What worked yesterday may not work tomorrow, so positioning your business for the long

ding difficulty in defining their combination products and facing various challenges from selecting a combination to marketing it.

Following aspects would a

term also requires a rethinking of today’s marketing and customer service strategies.

Take traditional advertising for example. In the day when the local radio station and newspaper were the primary source of news and informatio

dd to the challenges in developing combination products:

Which markets to tap where the combination products can do fairly well?
Which combination prod

n, it made sense to put your advertising message where the masses were looking. But consider how fragmented those two vehicles have become. With cable and the Internet, consumers have the option of thousands of radio stations, eac

cts are meaningful and rational?
Which therapeutic categories to select?
Which Combinations can address unmet needs of the patients?
Do combin

h one targeting a specific listening audience. Add to that the growing number of other choices on our time – satellite radio and TV, MP3s, DVDs, magazines, the Internet, etc. – and I challenge you to ask: “Am I spending my hard-ea

tions increase the patient compliance?
What would be the developing cost?
How to tackle the risks encountered during combination product developmen

rned money advertising to audiences that are no longer there?”

Considering all the advertising being thrown at us, is it surprising that we suffer from a feeling of mental and emotional paralysis – like kids in a huge candy store

t?

As combination products don't fit into the traditional categories of drugs, medical devices, or biological products, the USFDA is in the process of devel

? It becomes increasingly difficult to sort out what’s best.

We’re living in the New Economy but continue to use marketing strategies from the old one. We’re numb to advertising – on just about everything – but we add to the clut

ping new procedures for reviewing their safety, efficacy and quality.

Professional from academic institutions, pharmaceutical industries, health care indust

ter each time we approve another ad. We’re not sure if it’s effective but without an alternative, we do it anyway. We tout the importance of customer service but don’t take the time to train our staff. We know the value of ‘thank

y and representatives from various regulatory agencies are working out to design the regulatory requirements for manufacture and sale of combination products

you’ cards but our database is incomplete. The shop needs a facelift; but that’s for another day. We’re overwhelmed with all the things we need to do. What we really want is for everything to stand still while we catch up. Fuggeta

.

As there is an increasing trend of the combination products companies manufacturing such products should be able to tackle the problems involved in the de

boutit.

“Trend cycles are emerging more rapidly as a result of technology, accelerated social diffusion, instantaneous communication and more willingness to accept-or inability to escape-new ideas,” states Hallmark trends expert

elopment. They need to be wiser in analyzing the market trends and the regulatory requirements.

Companies that provide selfless information through particip

Marita Wesely-Clough. “When everything is accessible instantaneously, the ability to assimilate, to differentiate and to choose becomes more difficult.”

Part 3 – Trends Worth Billions - Consumer demand drives the speed of busines

tion in industry events and feedback to regulatory authorities would be able to face the challenges and will be successful in developing combination products

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