PwC France’s pharma and life sciences industry leader speaks out about the consultancy’s positioning as partner of choice for advisory services in the pharmaceutical industry with more than 75 percent of the local market now registered as clients. She also reflects upon the likely repercussions of digital disruption on the sector and predicts that multi-stakeholder collaboration will form the basis upon which new healthcare provision models are identified and designed. In 2013, PwC France merged its Pharmaceutical and Healthcare divisions into a single entity. Could you begin by explaining the rationale behind this structural shift? Three years ago, we resolved to merge our pharmaceuticals and healthcare divisions, into the health industries division. It was important to take into account a growing reality that pharma and healthcare are increasingly intertwined and have become part of the very same value chain and landscape of interactions. Cognizant of the way in which pharma companies are no longer just purveyors of pills, but proactive collaborators in the realization of positive health outcomes, we consolidated our operations. The result is that nowadays a single department handles the different strands of health services catering to specific actors in public and private health provision:  state agencies, government, enterprise and academia.

Pharmaceutical manufacturers are increasingly active in health system reform and policy makers are increasingly framing the drug development process. It is therefore natural to treat them as part of the same whole.