Roland Berger’s study analyzes successful pharmaceutical companies

Four main characteristics: business management; strategic coherence; proven ability to execute; and appropriate size and financial position demonstrably distinguish pharmaceutical companies from the “unprofitable growers”, “value creators” and “underperformers” of the business sector. The industry has been working to increase efficiency in recent years, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. The “winning” companies allocated resources extremely well; streamlined their sales and marketing activities, reducing selling, general and administrative (SG&A) expenses by an average of 4 percentage points, and thus their impact on profits. In addition, they made their operations more cost-effective in order to be better able to face new and already known challenges. Some examples of these challenges include developing tailored medicines for smaller patient populations, ensuring supply chain security, increasing sustainability efforts, and coping with increased price pressures.