Pharmaceuticals & Life Sciences

How PwC can help

Interaction with healthcare professionals and organisations

Using a specialised application or tailored solution, we can cover the entire lifecycle of the engagement process with so called HCPs and HCOs, starting from the budgeting phase through to the event closure. All that is integrated in your reporting or analytical tools.

Transparent disclosure of payments

We will help your organisation to efficiently manage and monitor the global transparency programme on disclosure of payments. This is our response to new risks, such as the failure to meet time limits, endangering the company reputation, and fines associated with reporting of inaccurate information.

Regulatory compliance

Along with our clients, we create efficient tools that ensure greater transparency of the reporting process across companies as well as the entire industry. We monitor trends and changes in the global regulatory frameworks and implement them into their compliance environment.

Tax and legal services

PwC specialists in the pharmaceutical industry belong among the top professionals in the country and they will be happy to advise you on any tax, legal or regulatory issues in this field. We will assist you in all the business aspects monitored by the SÚKL (State Institute for Drug Control).

The increasing requirements concerning the transparency and scope of mandatory reporting of companies doing their business in pharmaceuticals and life sciences put great demands on their people and infrastructure. Using our knowledge acquired in global projects and tried-and-tested technologies, we can facilitate the compliance with these obligations to make our clients’ work easier and, consequently, to save them money.

David Borkovec

partner, Market leader for Czech Republic

Our services

Interaction with healthcare professionals and organisations
Transparent disclosure of payments
Support of regulatory activities
Support of commercial activities
Tax and legal services

Interaction with healthcare professionals and organisations

Management of interactions with healthcare professionals (HCPs) and healthcare organisations (HCOs) provided by PwC comprises a comprehensive ecosystem linked to many other processes and systems. Using specialised applications or tailored solutions, PwC can support your company to cover the entire lifecycle of the engagement process with HCPs and HCOs. The cycle starts from the budgeting phase and ends by the event closure and it may be linked to the reporting or analytical tool designed according to the needs of your organisation.

The actual digitalisation of interactions with healthcare professionals (HCPs) and healthcare organisations (HCOs) for (bio)pharmaceutical companies and manufacturers of medical devices can bring groundbreaking results:

Proactive regulatory compliance: Systematic preventive due diligence ensures the consistency in executing the funding or grant applications and the cooperation between the HCPs and HCOs in compliance with the global rules.
Business efficiency and quality: Increasing the efficiency of resources thanks to automated and rationalised processes while using the added value thanks to improved analytics and visualisation options
Improved customer experience of healthcare professionals and organisations: Simplified interactions and lower administrative demands on HCPs/HCOs leading to better user experience and greater focus on the improvement of strategic value of the mutual cooperation.

Management of interactions with HCPs/HCOs works either as a comprehensive solution or as support of selected parts of the process provided within the scope that complies with the client’s needs:

Management platform for interactions with HCPs/HCOs
Interactive application for large businesses
Tailored solution for small businesses
Revision of process of interactions with HCPs/HCOs
Documentation review
Project management
Process enhancement
Risk and deficiency analysis
Thorough overview
We will help your company to increase its efficiency and benefit from the entire cycle of interactions with HCPs/HCOs.

Transparent disclosure of payments

Transparent cooperation between (bio)pharmaceutical/medtech companies and healthcare professionals (HCPs) or organisations (HCOs) became the crucial element of reputation and credibility of pharmaceutical companies worldwide, regardless of the increasing legislation or regulatory demands. The territorial scope as well as the complexity of the global legislation framework is increasing and thus introducing new risks, such as failure to meet time limits, endangering the company reputation, and fines associated with reporting of inaccurate information. PwC has designed services which involve the implementation and monitoring of transparent cooperation and which can help your company to manage the global transparency programme on disclosure of payments efficiently.

Two solutions are available to help you simplify and process 100% requirements on transparent reporting of payments:

Remedium

Flexible tool supporting data collection and modification used for report preparation within an outsourced model.

Transparency Hub

Cloud solution of the new generation designed both for outsourcing and for use by clients.

Transparent reporting allows you take your business to another level due to several reasons:

Decreased risk of failure to comply with regulations and reputational damage: You will be able to meet all the mandatory time limits and requirements within compliance and transparent reporting. You will improve your reputation and your competitive ability as a trustworthy company.
Efficiency improvement: You will have a constant overview of the current status, trends, changes and requirements of European authorities. Higher quality and data coherence.
Application of latest analytical options and new opportunities to understand data: Coverage of cross-border activities will facilitate the entrance to new markets. Improved quality and recommendation in the area of data processing and marketing, business or financial analyses.

Various models of cooperation are available to allow companies to reach their transparent reporting goals:

Transparent reporting as a service
- Partial outsourcing
- Complete outsourcing
- Ad hoc support

Project management
Process enhancement
Employee training
SOP creation
Risk and deficiency analysis
Thorough process review
Moreover, data acquired for reporting can be further used and analysed beyond the framework of compliance.
More about our Data & Automation services can be found here.

Support of regulatory activities

IDMP

Identification of medicinal products (IDMP) are the new ISO standards focused on the unique identification of medicinal products, presenting a great challenge for the (bio)pharmaceutical industry. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is the first regulator to implement the new binding ISO standards. According to the current time schedule, the IDMP are expected to become valid as of 2022. The exact date will be disclosed later during this year. The crucial fact is that the IDMP standards will need to be adhered to by all pharmaceutical companies launching medicinal products on the EU market. In the future, regulators of other parts of the world (such as the USA and Japan) are likely to implement the IDMP, too. Although the time limits for IDMP implementation have been postponed several times, they are inevitably approaching their final stage. The EMA is currently completing the detailed EU IDMP Implementation Guide (EU IG v2) which will be published in the second half of the year 2020. It is thus the right time for mobilisation especially for companies which have not been dealing with the standardisation according to IDMP so far or which have only completed the first stages.

As for IDMP preparation, we help our clients with the following:

IDMP understanding and identification of impacts and benefits for the client organisation
Short-term/long-term strategy set-up
Mapping out all systems and source data
Implementation of solutions corresponding to the client’s business needs
Ensuring continuous compliance

Thanks to our master data experience, we believe that we can make your IDMP implementation easier. We have helped our clients with the implementation of transparent disclosure of payments (EFPIA HCP/HCO), and not only did our solution allow compliance with regulatory requirements, but it also led to reduction of programme and operational issues associated with the key master data. Even greater potential can be found in the building blocks of IDMP implementation.

Registration activities

In practice, we see that the work in the department of Regulatory/Registration includes various manual tasks which have negative impact on the efficiency of the performed tasks as well as on the satisfaction of employees who perform them. We aim to identify the areas suitable for partial or full automation and to allow the specialists in the field to concentrate on more demanding tasks requiring their expertise.

We understand the demands of ensuring the compliance with all the regulatory requirements, and that is why we constantly strive to find new solutions in order to simplify the work and increase efficiency. This includes, for instance, the management of registration fees, which have major impact on planning and financial lifespan of each product.

We can help you with the following:

Consolidation of access from various regulatory sources worldwide to ensure their up-to-datedness and to reduce the manual labour
Monitoring and maintenance of the entire regulatory/registration budget to allow you to respond to changes in a flexible way
Quick and easy comparison of various options with the aim to find the most appropriate registration strategy

Requirements for higher quality of registration documentation keep increasing. Companies should thus find a responsible way to deal with deficiencies/observations arising from the communication with regulatory authorities with the aim to minimise the prolongation of the registration procedures, ultimately preventing the registration withdrawal.

We can help you with the following:

Consolidation of all the deficiencies or observations communicated by regulatory authorities to the database and the use of acquired experience for the purposes of higher efficiency
Interconnection of records from the database with the analytical tool; data assessment and visualisation and dashboard preparation with an overview of crucial points
Do you need to address any other issues and requirements in the area of Regulatory or Compliance? Feel free to get in touch with our contact persons or use the contact form.

Support of commercial activities

Strategy & Vision

We help our clients to prepare strategic forecasts of their regulatory and compliance activities. Defining the difference between the output and the required future state is the first step to successful enhancement of the programme. PwC performs thorough evaluation of the existing processes and creates a plan to successful accomplishment of the client’s goals.

Process optimisation & Support of operational activities

PwC supports the optimisation of client processes and operational activities which will allow you to reach your business goals. The advantage of cooperation with us is that we have global, specialised tools to provide services and understand the local legislation and requirements in the relevant language. Specialised PwC teams and centres of service provision are equipped in such a way that will support the specific needs of your programme.

Data analysis

An integral part of our services is a solution using efficient analytical tools for data optimisation and relevance of the subsequent outputs, which will allow faster and more efficient decision-making. More information about the Data & Automation can be found here.

Tax and legal services

Pharmaceutical companies operate in an environment full of strict and complex regulations. These regulations are not always well-linked to other regulations, such as tax laws. The solution of issues that need to be addressed by pharmaceutical businesses operating on the Czech market requires specific skills and experience.

PwC specialists in the pharmaceutical industry belong among the top professionals in the country and they will be happy to advise you on any tax, legal or regulatory issues in this field.

Current issues

Price regulation of pharmaceuticals and medical devices
Tax rules for transfer pricing which are not compatible with the price regulation issues
Critical judgement of the Supreme Administrative Court of the Czech Republic in response to the VAT assessed additionally with respect to provided marketing services
VAT refund based on payments made to insurance companies under so called risk-sharing agreements
Complicated rules for the supplies to healthcare facilities
Intellectual property protection
Licensing provisions
R&D investment demands

Services specific for the industry

Tax consulting in transfer pricing
Analysis of the business model and associated impacts of the judicial decisions of the Supreme Administrative Court of the Czech Republic
Tax and legal consulting in the area of so-called risk-sharing contracts
Tax consulting with respect to marketing authorisation of pharmaceuticals and clinical trials
Consulting in the area of provision of samples, discounts and bonuses
Tax and legal consulting in the area of licence agreements