Pharmaceutical companies have long relied on analytics leader SAS to navigate the complexities of bringing life-saving therapeutics to the global market. Now they’ll have the added benefit of best-in-class data and research from business information provider IHS Markit to guide global launch preparation and lifecycle decisions. The two companies have joined forces to create a common framework and model for pharma organizations to calculate and explore the effects of International Reference Pricing (IRP), an increasingly complicated price benchmarking framework prevalent outside the United States.

“For many years now, IRP rules from IHS Markit have been the industry standard for understanding changes that govern country baskets and formulas in referencing,” said Gustav Ando, Executive Director at IHS Markit. “The rules are updated with analytical rigor and extensive primary research. This new solution combines the expertise of IHS Markit with the powerful analytic technology of SAS to give pharmaceutical companies the ability to streamline decision making and predict with confidence an optimal launch sequence to support global revenue targets.”

Facing soaring R&D costs and shrinking profit margins, strategic product launch planning has become a make-or-break proposition across the industry. According to an Accenture report on global pricing strategies for pharmaceutical product launches, a 1 percent increase in price can translate into a 7 percent to 15 percent increase in operating profits. Conversely, a price dip can quickly equate to tens of millions of dollars in lost earnings.

“To optimize revenue potential, organizations must base their critical launch decisions on the most complete and accurate information possible, combined with industry-leading analytics,” said Patrick Homer, Global Life Sciences Practice Principal at SAS. “This new collaboration delivers a single point for our mutual customers to make the best strategic decisions for market access, aligning the most trusted analytics augmented with unparalleled data that automatically evolves with the changing IRP landscape. SAS and IHS Markit are the first to offer such a complete package.”

To learn more about how the SAS ^® solution for launch revenue optimization enables global pricing teams to proactively simulate and optimize launch timing and pricing decisions, download the free white paper, Optimize Your Launch Sequence Strategies .

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