Donald Writes to David
A Note on The Trump Pharma Letters
Trump sent letters to the leaders of 17 major pharmaceutical companies last week, outlining how they should slash U.S. prescription drug prices to match those paid overseas.
He posted copies of the letters on his Truth Social account.
"Most proposals my Administration has received promised more of the same," Trump wrote in the letters.
In other words, the storyline of value pitched by Big Pharma wasn't unique or big enough; it didn't have ‘surprise messaging’ or enough of an 'innovation shock' that works in the non-linear, Punk Rock world of Trump. From a sales standpoint, the pitch didn't promise the radical change that customers have come to expect from their vendors.
He reiterated calls to rein in Big PBM, which helps explain the flow of LillyDirect-like objects announced this week from Roche, Takeda and AstraZeneca (Big Pharma tends to see and think with a "me too" mind). Watch this flow turn into a flood. Which is big new market space not only for the CaptialRx’s, Prescriptive Health’s, Rightway’s and GoodRx’s to lead and define, but also for all the enterprise technology services companies desperately-seeking strategic fit, brands like Cognizant, HCLTech, Infosys and Wipro.
In a press briefing from the White House, spokesperson Karoline Leavitt read the letter to Eli Lilly aloud.
Leerink Partners analyst David Risinger said in a note to clients: "The demands are unachievable, given significant negative implications for a US biopharmaceutical company in terms of a) revenue and profits, b) ability to invest in innovation, and c) ability to compete with rising ex-US competition, in particular from Chinese biopharma companies."
I suppose that depends on how you think about "revenue" and "innovation" and "competition". (Dig Deeper: LillyDirect vs. NovoCare vs. PfizerForAll: May the Best Ecosystem Win)
Reading Things Differently
Markets (and market makers) in the business of healthcare should ditch the zero-sum mindset. Accept, adopt and adapt to a bigger idea: the primary mode of competition lies not in any one brand producing technology and technical inputs that are incrementally better than another equally-resourced brand’s technical inputs and technology, but in the unique integration schemes that widen the economic playing field for the most markets, at the same time.
Think ecosystem-centered market strategy as a seed, almost an acorn molecule, for creative leadership, the kind that enables big system change. Think new narrative layer constructed around ‘market interoperability’ as an economic concept, dwarfing and displacing ‘data interoperability’ as space for big new growth curves.
Strategic atrophy is a thing.
The Rising Tide is a far bigger thing than any ephemeral argument about using “price” of a piece to health as some kind of massive conclusion to “fix” what isn’t fixable. All systems operate most of the time in failure mode, as you may have noted.
Are the “demands achievable”? That depends on intention, claiming leadership, and then choosing to lead well in the time of strategic collapse. Margaret J. Wheatley:
“Where there are very destructive dynamics at play as our civilization travels down the arrow of time, these dynamics do not have to wield influence on anyone or any group that is willing to open to its environment, use its intelligence, and bravely face reality.
Whenever we open rather than close we become alive, a living system capable of self-organizing into new order rather than succumbing to disorder.”
The first rule of entrepreneurialism: whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right. If for no other reason than because the battle to sustain the status quo is aggressively anti-common sense.
/ jgs
John G. Singer is Executive Director of Blue Spoon, the global leader in positioning strategy at a system level. Blue Spoon specializes in constructing new industry narratives.