Pharma may be letting data go stale

June 16, 2009 – 3:49 pm by Steven Niles

Pharma CRM and data solutions provider Cegedim Dendrite took its show on the road today, holding its U.S. Roadshow at The New York Palace in NYC. The event was designed to highlight the company’s continued financial stability and its success in 2008. The company, which is the product of the 2007 merger between Paris-based Cegedim SA and Dendrite International Inc., did perform well last year, increasing revenue from 735 million euros in 2007 to 849 million euros in 2008. Executives project growth of around 6% for 2009, with a target of 900 million euros, owing to a positive impact on margins from the cost-cutting efforts the company undertook in 2008. These efforts primarily comprise efficiencies made in integrating the two companies.

The discussion of the company’s first quarter of this year brought up an interesting industry trend. Cegedim Dendrite has three primary business areas: CRM and strategic data, healthcare professionals, and insurances and services. In the CRM and strategic data area, the company saw a slight decrease in revenue of 1.3% in the first quarter of 2009. According to Chief Investment Officer Jan Eryk Umiastowski, this decrease was a result of pharma clients cutting costs by neglecting to update their market research.

I’ll be interested to look into this further. To what extent is pharma relying on stale data? And at what cost for this so-called cost-cutting measure?

Tags: Cegedim Dendrite, market research