Pharmaceutical Budget and Staffing: Powerful New Metrics-B...( CHAPEL HILL N.C. Feb. 7 /- Fallin...)

CHAPEL HILL, N.C., Feb. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- Falling stock prices, devaluing dollar, soaring gas prices, and the slumping real estate market are just a few of the symptoms of the recession hitting the U.S. economy. While a recession will impact all industries, it may have a deeper impact on pharma and biotech companies as they have already been dealing with increasing pricing and regulatory pressures and decreasing numbers of newly approved therapies. Given the current environment, it is imperative for companies to maintain the appropriate mix of budgets and staffing to meet corporate objectives.

The current report, U.S. Pharmaceutical Budget and Staffing Excellence: Benchmarking the Resources Required to Drive Productivity and Growth, can be an invaluable resource allowing pharmaceutical and biotech executives to critically assess key business functions and resources against thirty-six top pharma and biotech companies. The rich metrics contained in this comprehensive report emanate from survey responses from staffing executives at such elite pharmaceutical and biotech companies as Abbott Labs, AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, J&J, Eli Lilly GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Novartis, Pfizer, Roche and Sanofi-Aventis.

Executive insight across seven critical functional areas, including:

* Marketing Operations

* Marketing Services

* Sales Support

* Managed Care

* State & Government Affairs

* Finance

* Legal and Compliance

Sampling of the key findings harnessed from the report include:

* Marketing Services groups support an average of 7.8 brands with 6.7 FTEs

allocated per brand promoted

* Sales Support groups allocate approximately $460,000, including labor,

overhead and outsourcing, per sales support FTE

* Managed Care groups report an average of 18 FTEs allocated to Customer

Marketing Strategy

* Finance budgets as a percentage of sales average 1.33%