Fedra Pavlou is the former editor-in-chief of 

Fedra Pavlou

With the pharmaceutical industry being in a current state of unrest in light of the recent spate of mergers, acquisitions, job cuts, divestments, patent expiries, and so on, we wanted to know how you felt about all these changes that will have directly or indirectly affected you. So towards the end of last year, we invited visitors to our website to participate in our weekly poll, which revealed some interesting results (

When we asked our readers what their feelings were towards the M&As of 2009, an astonishing 56% of you felt that the deals will have an overall negative effect on the dynamics of the 2010 pharma industry. This makes for worrying reading given that a number of market analysts have predicted further M&A activity this year. In fact, more than half of you do not believe that the industry will begin to recover from the aftermath of recession until at least 2011. Please go to 

 of this issue to read more about our findings. 

Our survey results have indeed been enlightening and have indicated your sense of unease given the changes that have been taking place in the industry. Moving forward, we will continue to seek your opinions on industry trends and issues and we will highlight some of the results in our issues throughout the year. I would like to encourage you to take part in these short, one-question polls; however, if you would like to discuss anything further on any of our surveys, we would be delighted to welcome you into our LinkedIn group (

). As always, your comments and opinions are important to us so please do join your peers and get involved in our regular polls and forums. 

On another note, you may have noticed this month's launch of the latest product to our portfolio: 

Digital. Created to provide you with a snapshot of a different sector of the pharmaceutical industry each month — covering issues, innovations, techniques and products — it is our aim to provide you with a downloadable, comprehensive digital archive of special industry features. If you do not already receive it, please go to 

Articles

With the pharmaceutical industry being in a current state of unrest in light of the recent spate of mergers, acquisitions, job cuts, divestments, patent expiries, and so on, we wanted to know how you felt about all these changes that will have directly or indirectly affected you.

Is change good for you?

Merger, union, alliance, partnership, collaboration: five words that ultimately suggest the strengthening of something. Every company, no matter how large or small, must undertake at least one of these strategies to secure its longevity. 

Indeed, no one can escape the frenzy of activity that has been taking place in the pharmaceutical industry lately. Such unions have, of course, been commonplace; however, it's been quite interesting to see pharma's response to the threats it currently faces, including, amongst others, the economic downturn, dry development pipelines and generic competition. The reaction of these already giant corporations has been to form alliances to grow an existing division, to diversify, to shed an underperforming unit, to secure a solid pipeline, and so on. Whatever the secondary reason, the primary reason has always been to secure growth, to strengthen, to improve and to survive. 

, we too have undertaken such a union; we have united with our US colleagues at 

to bring our readers a tool that we believe is the best online resource for pharmaceutical manufacturing professionals. We hope that you agree with us!  

 covers developments from around the world in formulation, outsourcing, drug delivery, ingredients, regulatory, testing, packaging and IT. As well as providing news and analysis, the site allows you to interact with us and your peers on Pharma Tech Talk, access archives of peer-reviewed content and features, take part in surveys and polls, search suppliers, read interviews with industry leaders, search for careers, watch webcasts, listen to podcasts, and access our significant library of white papers. I could go on, but I hope all of these are reason enough to entice you to visit our brand new website and to keep coming back! 

I would welcome your comments and suggestions on the new 

 so please do feel free to email me with your thoughts. After all, this website is for you. 

Merger, union, alliance, partnership, collaboration: five words that ultimately suggest the strengthening of something.

Strength in numbers

Finally, the summer has arrived and hopefully the weather has been kind and blessed you with some glorious rays of sunshine. Surprisingly, the UK skies have turned off the usual rain tap, allowing us to enjoy the temperatures that many of our European neighbours have been experiencing. How long this good spell will last, however, is anyone's guess.

Anyway, the sense of optimism and enthusiasm that has accompanied this good weather led the 

 team and I to consider setting up a professional networking group. Having discussed the pros and cons of this form of communication, along with our hopes and aspirations for the group, we went for it. The 

 group has now been formed and is housed on LinkedIn (

Now I have to admit, I have always been somewhat cynical of networking groups, opting never to sign up to any social networking sites when Facebook became a worldwide phenomenon and gripped pretty much every internet-savvy person that I know. I must also hold my hands up and admit that, up until recently, any invitations that I would receive from colleagues or peers, inviting me to LinkedIn, would be swiftly deleted from my inbox. Terrible, I know, but then I suppose my poor actions were related to my ignorance — I never really knew what LinkedIn was, or why I would benefit from it. Thankfully, I've been saved by some of my very patient colleagues.

's LinkedIn group. LinkedIn is the world's largest professional networking space, with more than 9 million members in Europe alone, so we thought it would be a good place to meet and communicate with our peers. The aim of 

's group is to provide a forum for professionals involved in the pharmaceutical technology and manufacturing industry to meet and to share knowledge, expertise and potential opportunities. I also see this as a friendly way for us to keep in touch.

As the group grows, we will be posting discussions and updates whilst encouraging our members to post their own discussions and to invite other colleagues or like-minded individuals to join. We will start some debates to help out, but it's your input as an expert in your field that will enable you to reap professional benefits including, we hope, promotion of improvements and innovation in your industry whilst meeting new and interesting people.

Still not convinced? Perhaps this month's article 

 authored by our very own Editorial Director, Peter Houston, and resident LinkedIn expert, will give you some food for thought.

Log in and decide for yourself. Our group can be found at 

p.s. For those of you who prefer to Tweet, you can also follow us on Twitter 

You are invited to Link In and Twitter with PTE!

We invite you to Link in

This month, Frankfurt readies itself for the descent of more than 27000 additional visitors, as it plays host to the world's largest chemical engineering exhibition and congress — Achema 2009. As always, the

) team will be there, offering you the opportunity to renew your magazine subscription, sign up to additional services and to discuss our product offerings with a member of the team. This year, we will also be running a very short survey from our stand, the aim of which is to find out exactly what it is that you want from a professional publication. Offering you the chance to contribute to the editorial direction of your monthly magazine should be incentive enough but, as a reward for taking a couple of minutes of your time, you will also be entered into a draw to 

. The winner will be drawn on the last day of the event. 

This year's Achema meeting is an important one for me; it marks my first international event as Editor of 

. It's my job to ensure that the team and I are serving you, our readers, to the very best of our ability. As such, if you are attending the meeting, I would be very grateful if you would take the time to stop by our stand and let us know what you think about the services that we offer. If you have some ideas on how we might serve you better, then please do let us know. It would be a pleasure to meet some of you, so if you do have some spare time, please stop and say hello. You can find us in 

 of the Messe Frankfurt exhibition centre, 

This month, Frankfurt readies itself for the descent of more than 27000 additional visitors, as it plays host to the world's largest chemical engineering exhibition and congress - Achema 2009.

Meet you in Frankfurt?

The formation of a partnership, whether personal or professional, is risky business. Usually, a partnership is entered into by two parties seeking to benefit from the collaboration in some way, and it is only with time, dedication, common interests and hard work that a partnership is likely to succeed. When you're talking about a partnership between multibillion dollar firms, the stakes couldn't really get much higher. 

We have only just reached the end of Q1 for 2009 and already this year will probably go down in corporate and pharmaceutical history as the year of the mega mergers. Pfizer started in January by announcing its intentions to acquire Wyeth for $68.1 billion (€52.8 billion). This was followed some weeks later by Merck's surprise announcement that it was to acquire ScheringPlough for just over $40 billion (€31 billion. Then, Roche agreed to buy the remaining 44% of shares in US biotech giant Genentech. 

Imminent patent expirations, dry late-stage pipelines, market withdrawals, highprofile lawsuits and the economic downturn have all affected the majority of Big Pharma, but is this wave of acquisitions a sign of strategic brilliance or sheer desperation? And should all Big Pharmas be considering similar acquisitions simply to survive? 

On the face of it, each of these acquisitions makes good financial and strategic sense. Pfizer's purchase of Wyeth will create one of the most diversified companies in the global healthcare industry, with no drug expected to account for more than 10% of the combined entity's revenues by 2012. In ScheringPlough, Merck will not only double its pipeline of late-stage compounds, but could also save the company approximately $6 billion (€4.7 billion) annually after 2011.  

Genentech, conversely, has been spurning the advances of Roche since last summer, but it seems that every company has its price and Genentech settled on $95 (€73.6) per share, allowing Roche to purchase the remaining 44% of the firm. This widely anticipated deal will see Roche gain maximum exposure to the fastest growing section of the global pharmaceuticals market — biotechnology and cancer medicine. The world's largest biotechnology company, Genentech, has been majorityowned by Roche since 1990 and, during this time, Genentech has developed some blockbuster brands that have been the envy of the industry. It will be interesting to see how this outright acquisition will alter Genentech's culture of innovation. Time will tell. 

One thing that is certain, I don't think 2009 has seen the last of the pharma powerhouse mega mergers, which begs the question: who's next? 

The formation of a partnership, whether personal or professional, is risky business.

A question of strategy

It is time for me to move on. Being Editor of 

(PTE) has been a fantastic experience and I would like to say thank you. Thank you to the team at Advanstar; firstly for giving me the opportunity and then for making my job extremely enjoyable and fulfilling. Thank you to all the representatives I met at the different trade shows and conferences I attended — you constitute a very friendly face to an industry that too often gets very bad press. Last but not least, I would like to thank the readers for their continued support and constructive advice. Without you we are nothing! 

Please allow me to introduce the new Editor of PTE, Fedra Pavlou. 

It is with real pleasure that I join the PTE team at what promises to be both a changing and, subsequently, challenging time. Whilst none of us can know what the fallout from the current economic climate will be for the pharmaceutical profession, our editorial team will continue to best suit your needs as readers by bringing you relevant, topical and unbiased information — not just in print, but with additional exclusive web content at 

 our weekly e-newsletter and also through new digital products. 

As Editor of this publication, I pledge to provide you with interesting and engaging content that you will find both enjoyable and beneficial. Our job is to serve you to the best of our ability and, during the coming months, I look forward to meeting with some of you, speaking with you and hearing what we can do to make your job easier. I would also encourage you to continue to send your feedback to us.  

We look forward to continuing to make a real contribution to promoting improvements and best practice in your profession.  