Delphi Data Analysis

According to Fahety (1979) and Holden (1993), statistical consensus can be derived by using the quartile deviation (Q.D.). The quartile deviation is calculated by determining the quartile range, subtracting the lowest number, and dividing by 2. The smaller the quartile deviation is, the higher the consensus reaches. In Delphi questionnaire which applies Likert scale, the high coherence would be get when the Q.D.

is equal or less than 0.60, and the medium coherence would be get when the Q.D. is 0.60 to 1.00; the coherence would not be get when the Q.D. is more than 1.00.(Fahety, 1979) A modified, two-round Delphi survey was applied in this study. There are 24 sentences in the first round questionnaire, the Q.D. of 22 sentences are all less than 0.60, which means the experts’ consensus were reached. However, the Q.D. of sentence [14]

and [22] were equal to 1.00, which means the medium consensus should be modified more specific. Only sentence [2] should be “deleted”, and the author would change this sentence for the second round of Delphi survey, which refers to Table 4-1 and Appendix A and B.

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Table 4-1 Analysis of First Round of Delphi Survey First Round of Delphi Survey

Number of

Sentence Q.D. Agree Agree after Modify Delete

1 0.5 38% 54% 8% statistical analysis but also the feedback from the experts’ suggestions. Fortunately, the second round survey reached pretty high coherence, the Q.D. of 4 sentences ([1],[12],[14],[24]) were equal to 0.75 and get the medium coherence; and the rest of the

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sentences had got high coherence in the second round of Delphi survey, referring to Table 4-2 and Appendix C. At the second round of the survey, most of the experts agree with the sentences in the questionnaire for the coming Q interview.

Table 4-2 Analysis of Second Round of Delphi Survey Second Round of Delphi Survey

Number of generated from the second round of Delphi survey.

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Drug Discovery- Factors Conditions

1. Infrastructure: Foresight in 2030, in the beginning stage of the biopharmaceutical development, under the mutual recognition agreement, the open source mechanisms of biotechnology should be established so as to promote the innovation and collaboration of the research.

2. R&D and Innovation: Foresight in 2030, bio-terrorism and flu pandemic will prevail. Therefore, we should focus on the development of vaccines and biopharmaceuticals in the beginning stage of biopharmaceutical development so as to meet the future trends.

3. Human Resource: Foresight on 2030, in the beginning stage of biopharmaceutical development, it is necessary to have the cross-field R&D talents. (e.g. chemical and medical personnel.)

Drug Discovery—Industrialized Conditions

4. Commercialization: Foresight in 2030, in the beginning stage of the biopharmaceutical development, the R&D units should consider cross-border collaborative development so as to accelerate the research and meet the market needs.

5. Support Industry: Foresight in 2030, in the beginning stage of the biopharmaceutical development, the drug delivery systems will be improved by the integration of biotechnology and nanotechnology.

Drug Discovery—Regulations Conditions

6. Regulatory Environment: Foresight in 2030, in the beginning stage of the biopharmaceutical development, the governmental research agencies should play the leading role to set up a regulation environment for instant innovation and

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sharing.

7. Intelligent Property: Foresight in 2030, in the beginning stage of the biopharmaceutical development, the patents period should be prolonged in order to encourage the companies to research and develop biopharmaceutical products, which would also fit the market trends.

8. Investment and Tax: Foresight in 2030, in the beginning stage of the biopharmaceutical development, the government should provide the financial subsidy and perfect the infrastructures since the R&D is time-consuming and the cost is high.

Clinical Trial- Factors Conditions

9. Infrastructure: Foresight in 2030, due to the fact that clinical trials play an important role in entering commercialization, the government should provide complete the related infrastructures of the clinical trials.

10. R&D and Innovation: Foresight in 2030, in the stage of clinical trials, the information system should connect the data of pharmacogenomics and the medical records in order to improve the safety and efficiency significantly of the clinical trails.

11. Human Resource: Foresight in 2030, in the stage of clinical trials, the medical personnel should be mandatory insured the ‘professional liability insurance’ to protect the rights of medical personnel and patients and raise the willingness to participate in clinical trails of both sides.

Clinical Trial—Industrialized Conditions

12. Commercialization: Foresight in 2030, the biopharmaceutical companies will actively invest in the clinical trials of new products in the second half stage so as to speed commercialization due to the patent expiration.

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13. Support Industry: Foresight in 2030, in the stage of clinical trails, in addition to the human trials, “virtual man” model can also be adopted so as to increase the success rate of in vivo experimentation and accelerate the development of clinical trials.

Clinical Trial—Regulations Conditions

14. Regulatory Environment: Foresight in 2030, in the stage of clinical trails, the biopharmaceutical should adopt “permanent permission system” instead of the current “all-or-nothing” approach to the approval of new drug in order to reduce the cost and time at the stage of clinical trial.

15. Intelligent Property: Foresight on 2030, in the stage of clinical trails, the biopharmaceutical companies should subsume CROs as strategic partners in order to get more professional knowledge and technology.

16. Investment and Tax: Foresight in 2030, in the stage of clinical trails, the biopharmaceutical companies should include the clinical performance in the mechanism assessment of financial statement in order to attract more capital investment.

Product Launch & Marketing - Factors Conditions

17. Infrastructure: Foresight in 2030, in the manufacturing and marketing stage, biopharmaceutical industry should establish a commercial platform of integrated information.

18. R&D and Innovation: Foresight in 2030, in the manufacturing and marketing stage, the biopharmaceutical industry (particularly refers to the protein drugs) should provide the trend of customization and personalization (the use of genomics, proteomics and other tools) so as to conduct the all-round comprehensive treatment to the root cause of the disease.

19. Human Resource: Foresight on 2030, in the marketing stage, the business of

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biopharmaceutical products will no longer be sold by the general officers;

instead, the professional biopharmaceutical staffs will be trained to perform the sales exhibition affairs and provide professional services.

Product Launch & Marketing—Industrialized Conditions

20. Commercialization: Foresight in 2030, in the marketing stage, the biopharmaceutical companies should make an alliance with the medical services (such as hospitals, health clubs, information technology companies, physical therapy centers and so on) in order to meet the customized needs.

21. Support Industry: Foresight in 2030, in the stage of biopharmaceutical production, the government can improve the process through related support industries so as to achieve the more effective and cost-saving effect.

Product Launch & Marketing— Regulations Conditions

22. Regulatory Environment: Foresight in 2030, in the manufacturing and marketing stage, the government should encourage and assist the biopharmaceutical companies to gain more resources and opportunities through industry-academia cooperation, strategic alliances, outsourcing, even M&A activities and other multi-mode.

23. Intelligent Property: Foresight in 2030, in the manufacturing stage, the government should change the traditional system of patent protection into the incentive reward system so as to reward the patent licensing.

24. Investment and Tax: Foresight on 2030, the pharmaceutical companies spent too much money on advertising; there should be much tighter rules on the promotion of medicines.

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