5 reasons to call in the experts: Establishing a pharma business in Australia

^{Posted on October 30, 2015}

Over the past 12 months Commercial Eyes has assisted a number of companies to establish a pharma business in Australia. Some examples include foreign companies licensing their products to a local distributor; companies terminating their local distribution arrangements and establishing an Australian subsidiary; and, companies establishing their local entity and building capabilities from scratch.

In each of these scenarios, management faces similar challenges and questions. Where do they get good professional support and advice? What capabilities do they intend to resource internally? And what technical support can be sourced externally?

Some of the common challenges that companies need to consider are:

1. When transferring a product’s marketing authorisation from a licenced distributor to another entity, ensure that advice is sought regarding important intellectual property matters such as trademark ownership.
2. Give consideration to which legal entity is the most appropriate to hold the product’s marketing authorisation. Third party solutions are worthy of genuine consideration.
3. When establishing a local team, ensure that appropriate consideration is given to Australia’s workplace laws – particularly employment contracts.
4. Develop a good understanding of the available distribution channels and providers. Australia is a vast country and products requiring temperature controlled storage and transport are not always easy to manage.
5. Give solid consideration to which components of a business should be kept in house and which can, or should be, outsourced. The regulatory and reimbursement cycles in Australia are of a nature that full time permanent in-house resources are not always necessary, particularly in the start-up phase.

This article was written by Andrew Carter, Managing Director, Commercial Eyes.