Tag Archives: branded

The Indian and Global Pharmaceutical Industry – A brief perspective to meet the challenge of change

Posted on by
Reply
A. INDIAN PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE:
January 1, 2005 ushered in a paradigm shift in the Indian Pharmaceutical Industry with the new product patent regime. Future of the industry, thereafter, will never be the same again as what we have been witnessing since 1970.

Gradually India, which was synonymous to cheaper copycat generic versions of products patented in most of the developed and emerging pharmaceutical markets of the world, is expected to transit through a relatively ‘lull period’ for a shorter duration, before it starts helping to establish India as a force to reckon with, in the pharmaceutical research and development (R&D) space of the world. We have seen some glimpses of the era to come by through initial basic research initiatives of companies like, Ranbaxy, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories (DRL), Piramal Life Science and Glenmark. All such companies are gradually transforming their R&D focus from reverse-engineering to developing new chemical/molecular entity (NCE/NME) or novel drug delivery systems (NDDS).

Opportunities during the paradigm shift:

The low cost base, large English speaking technical talent pool and development of world class R&D facilities of the country will play the role of catalysts in this fast changing process and throw open many new vistas of opportunities for the industry to cash on.

At the same time, generic companies will play even more important global role than ever before. Many of them will no longer remain a local branded generic or generic player, they will open their wings to fly down to the important global destinations. Some others will collaborate with multi-national pharmaceutical companies (MNCs) in their contract research and manufacturing services (CRAMS) initiatives. For others, the domestic pharmaceutical market will still remain big and lucrative enough to grow their business.

However, those companies, which will not be able to effectively combat the ‘challenge of rapid changes’ will either perish or be gobbled-up by the big fishes in the consolidation process of the local and global pharmaceutical industry.

Some perspectives:

Though the domestic Indian pharmaceutical industry caters to around 70% of the requirements of pharmaceuticals of the nation, is highly fragmented. The industry manufactures 8% of the global production being the fourth largest producer of pharmaceuticals in terms of volume and employs over half a million people, mostly by around 300 large to medium sized companies in their local and global operations. Although around 6000 companies are engaged in manufacturing, many of them are third party manufacturers. Small manufacturers, who do not conform to ‘Schedule M’ requirements of the Drugs & Cosmetics Act will face or have already started facing trying times.

In terms of value, at present, India with around U.S 7.8 billion turnover, shares just around 2% of the global market with 14th in ranking. McKinsey forecasts that by 2015 India will record a turnover of U.S$ 20 billion and will improve its rank in the global pharma league table to 10th.

Key markets of the domestic Indian companies:

Although India still remains one of the major markets of the domestic Indian pharmaceutical companies, many of them have already established their business in the US, Europe, Latin America, Russian Federation, Africa, Middle East, South East Asia and even in Japan and Australia.

Contribution of India business of different Indian pharmaceutical companies to their global business varies based on their respective business strategies, from 63% of Zydus Cadila to around 16% of DRL, in 2007-08.

US market followed by Europe, is the main revenue earner for most of the large Indian companies. For example Ranbaxy generated around 27% and 20% of their global turnover from the US and Europe, respectively in 2008.

However, for some other companies like Wockhardt, Europe is a more important market than USA. Wockhardt generated around 54% of their global turnover from Europe, in 2007.

Global market entry strategy:

Different Indian companies adopted different market entry and expansion strategies in their globalization process. However, these have been mostly driven mergers and acquisitions.

Is the Indian pharmaceutical industry facing a dire need for an image makeover?

Despite significant contribution of the Indian pharmaceutical industry to provide relatively cheaper generic medicines to address a wide array of ailments of a vast majority of the population, the image of the industry to its stakeholders or even to public at large, is far from satisfactory.

There are some key perceptual reasons for the same. Some of these are as follows:

1. Pharmaceutical industry is making exorbitant profits at the cost of the basic healthcare needs of the common man.

This perception gets further strengthened when, for example, the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) demands crores of rupees from many pharmaceutical companies for overcharging to the patients and notices are served even attaching their properties to recover these dues.

2. The quality of all medicines is not reliable.

This gets vindicated when, for example, the government for its ‘Jan Aushadhi’ program refuses to buy from certain groups of licensed pharmaceutical manufacturers, predominantly on product quality parameters.

3. Some questions, do the pharmaceutical manufacturers in India manufacture medicines following the highest quality norms?

To answer to this question some people argue; if so, why will Indian manufacturers need stringent manufacturing quality certification of the drug regulators of the developed markets to export medicines in the those countries? Why the manufacturing quality certification given to these exporters by the Indian drug regulator is not accepted in those countries?

Moreover, when medicines are imported into India, we accept the quality norms of the drug regulators of the developed countries.

4. Some sections of the media highlight the alleged malpractices by the Indian pharmaceutical companies to promote their mediciness to the medical profession. Such alleged high expenditure towards product promotion is considered by many as avoidable wasteful expenses, the benefit of which can easily be passed on to the patients.

Indian pharmaceutical industry is yet to develop a uniform code of marketing practices, which will be applicable to all the pharmaceutical companies across the board and implement the same effectively, to address such allegations.

Multinational Companies – friends or foes?

To partly salvage the situation, at the same time, one notices open attempts are being made to project the multinational drug companies as demons, the exploiters with a suspicious agenda of thwarting the growth of the domestic companies. In such a scenario, it is indeed perplexing, when one sees the names of the Indian companies at the top of the NPPA lists who allegedly overcharged maximum amount of money to the common man.

What the industry should do jointly:

Under such sad circumstances, the entire industry should come together, take a hard look on itself first and extend its helping hands in public private partnership (PPP) initiatives for the benefit of the civil society.

Such PPP may not necessarily be charitable. It could focus on developing a robust healthcare financing model with industry expertise, for implementation with the government involvement for all strata of society. Or, for example, the industry should come out with a plan, which the US Pharmaceutical trade association – PhRMA has recently proposed to the Obama administration voluntarily on their ‘Medicare’ program, for the senior citizens of America.

For image makeover the name of the game is actual ‘demonstration’ of the good intent and NOT ‘pontification’ of what others should do, highlighting the identified loopholes in the government machineries.

B. GLOBAL PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE:

In the midst of the global financial meltdown, beginning 2009, no one is still able to fathom what impact, if at all, will it leave on to the global pharmaceutical industry.

In the most populous country of the world – China, in April 2009, the government unfolded the blueprints of new healthcare reform measures, covering the entire nation.

Similarly, in the oldest democracy and the richest country of the world – United States of America, President Barak Obama administration expressed their resolve to address important healthcare related issues, as an integral part of the economic reform of the country.

In other developed markets of the world like Europe and Japan intense cost containment pressure is in turn creating significant pricing pressure on pharmaceuticals, triggering the demand of greater use of cheaper generic formulations.

Financial meltdown though eroded the market capitalization of most of the companies; the growth of the global pharmaceutical industry remained unabated till 2008, albeit at a slower pace though. Many markets of the world witnessed a faster generic switch, fuelling higher volume growth of the generic segment of the industry.

Some perspectives:

In 2008 the global pharmaceutical market size was of U.S$ 780 billion, which is expected to grow to U.S$ 937 billion in 2012 registering a 5 year CAGR of around 5.5%. Sales worth U.S$ 253 billion came from just 100 blockbuster drugs, contributing around one third of the global pharmaceutical market.

USA with a retail revenue turnover of U.S$ 206 is the largest market of the world, though currently showing a sharp decline in its growth rate. The growth rate of the US is expected to drop further along with the patent expiry of other blockbuster drugs.

Just three countries of Europe, U.K, France and Germany contributed to 50% of pharmaceutical sales of entire Europe.

Doctors’ are no longer the sole decision maker to prescribe a medicinal product:

Just like in the US, one witnesses a change in the role of the medical professionals as a key decision maker to prescribe medicines for the patients in Europe, as well. More and more, payors like health insurance companies, NHS are assuming that role.

A shift from small molecule pharmaceuticals to large molecule biotech products:

As small molecule pharmaceuticals are coming under intense pricing pressure, the focus of new drug launches is shifting towards more expensive large molecule biotech drugs with much higher margins of profit increasing the treatment cost further.

The brighter side:

Growing middle class population with higher disposable income together with increase spending of the government towards healthcare, in most of these countries, are making the pharmaceutical industry grow at a much faster pace in the emerging markets like, Brazil, Venezuela, Russia, China, India, Turkey, Mexico and Korea. However, the revenue and profit earned by the global companies from the developed markets are still far more than the emerging markets of the world.

Access to healthcare still remains a global issue:

Despite so much of progress of the global pharmaceutical industry, access to healthcare still remains an issue, besides others, even in some of the developed markets of the world. The waiting period of a patient just to get an appointment of the doctor is increasing fast. Even in the US about 47 million of US citizens still are not covered by insurance, besides many more of them who remain underinsured.

Global pharmaceutical industry is still considered a part of the problem:

Despite meeting the unmet needs of the patients through intensive research and development initiatives and various global access programs for the needy and the downtrodden, the civil society all over the world, including in the developed countries, still believes that the pharmaceutical industry is a part of the global healthcare problems, though relatively more in the developing and the least developed economies of the world. These perceptions are mainly due to high costs of patented drugs, high research expenditure for low value added drugs and seemingly unethical marketing practices of the industry across the board with varying degree.

Conclusion:

The pharmaceutical industry, the ultimate savior in the battle against disease, is now passing through a critical phase both locally and globally and both in terms of its image and capacity to deliver newer medicines ensuring their affordable access, the reason of which may vary from country to country.

Be that as it may, the industry has been making significant contribution to the humanity to meet the ever increasing unmet needs of the patients. However, expectations of the stakeholders are also growing and justifiably so. There is no time for the industry, in general, to ponder much now or rest on the past laurels. It is about time to walk the never ending extra mile, for the global patients’ sake.

By Tapan Ray

Disclaimer: The views/opinions expressed in this article are entirely my own, written in my individual and personal capacity. I do not represent any other person or organization for this opinion.

Recent appetite of Global Pharmaceutical Majors for Generic Pharmaceutical Business: can it pose a threat to pure generic players?

Posted on by
Reply
Last year Lehman Brothers estimated that by 2012 over 25% of the global pharmaceutical market will face competition from generics. Higher demand of generics is mainly due to the following reasons:1. Increased number of patented drugs is going off-patent.2. Cost containment and pricing pressure, especially from the Government, in the developed markets of the world.

3. Increasing number of patents is being challenged, especially in the U.S courts, on the ground of “obviousness”.

“Obviousness” is becoming a key reason of patent challenges in the U.S:

In first quarter of the last year we read about the U.S trial court making void the key patent of Yasmin, the contraceptive drug of Bayer for ‘obviousness’. This incident had compelled Bayer to revise its profit forecast downwards, for 2008.

‘Obviousness’ is increasingly becoming one of the key reasons for challenging Patents in many countries of the world, including India. Financial Times reported recently that keeping protection to all patents intact, could eventually pose to be a key challenge for the R&D based global pharmaceutical companies. Many analysts feel that the issue of “obviousness” could indeed be a threat to many U.S pharmaceutical patents, especially those, which will be considered by the court just as a ‘tweaked-up’ version of existing drugs.

As reported by ‘Chemical Weekly’, March 2008, total 338 patent challenges were recorded globally in 2008. India ranks only next to USA with a share of 21% pharmaceutical patent challenges.

Global generic pharmaceutical market is growing at a faster pace:

Prescription market in the U.S grew by just 1.3% last year to U.S$291 billion. Key factors believed to be responsible for slower growth in the U.S market are as follows:

1. Higher prescriptions for less expensive generic medicines.

2. Lower sales of higher priced new products.

3. Economic downturn has made more patients to move to generics and large number of consumers to lose their health insurance.

Similarly in the United Kingdom (U.K) generics industry supplies 64% of medicines dispensed by the National Health Scheme (NHS), though they contribute just around 30% of NHS expenditure towards medicines.

Recent reports indicate that the generic global pharmaceutical market is expected to record a turnover of U.S$ 520 billion by 2012. This market size is too lucrative to ignore by any big global pharmaceutical player.

Based on sales turnover of 2007, Teva tops the list of global generic players with a turnover of U.S$ 9.1 billion, followed by Sandoz with U.S$ 5.8 billion and Mylan/Merck with U.S$ 4.6 billion.

From India, Ranbaxy registered a turnover of U.S$ 1.7 billion, Dr.Reddy’s U.S$ 1.4 billion, Cipla U.S$ 1 billion and Sun Pharma/Taro U.S$ 900 million, during that year.

48% of the total 422.6 million prescriptions written in Canada in 2007 were for generic medicines, which registered an annual growth of 14%, reports IMS Canada. Compared to this performance, branded products in Canada recorded a growth of meager 0.2%, during this period. As a consequence, generic Canadian pharmaceutical companies like Novopharm (Teva) and Apotex recorded impressive growth of 46.8% and 18.5%, respectively, in that period.

Despite such outstanding performance of generic pharmaceuticals, overall growth of prescription drugs in Canada was at just 6.3%, the lowest in the last ten year period.

President Obama’s Healthcare Policy will encourage generics and biosimilar drugs:

It is widely believed that the new U.S administration under President Barak Obama will try to encourage speedy introduction of generics into the U.S market.

So far as ‘Biosimilar’ drugs are concerned, in 2009 Obama administration is expected to work out the road map to facilitate the introduction of ‘Biosimilar dugs’ in the U.S market. Due to inherent characteristics that biological are ‘grown and not just manufactured’, biosimilar drugs are not expected to be replica of the original products.

To find out a solution to the heated debate, an answer has to be found out regarding the extent of clinical trials that the ‘biosimilar’ manufacturers will require to undertake to satisfy the U.S FDA that these drugs are as safe as the original ones. It is believed by some that the answer to this question lies in the approach that gives regulatory authority the flexibility in ‘what it demands that asks for more evidence than is now required for generic drugs, but something less than the kind of full-blown trials required for products new to the market.’

Global pharmaceutical majors are developing appetite for generics business:

Keeping a close vigil on these developments, as it were, even Pfizer, the largest pharmaceutical player of the world, has started curving out a niche for itself in the global market of fast growing generics, following the footsteps of other large global players like Novartis, GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi-Aventis and Daiichi Sankyo.

Is Pfizer planning to follow the business model of Abbott and Johnson & Johnson (J&J)?

As reported by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), Mr. Kindler the CEO of Pfizer very recently commented, “We are breaking the company down into smaller units so we aren’t dependent on any single product… I am a great admirer of J&J and Abbott’s business model.”

It appears what Mr. Kindler perhaps meant by this statement is that smaller business units, like Over the Trade Counter (OTC), Vaccines, Nutrition and Animal Health can be more ‘manoeuvrable and innovative’ for faster business growth. Acquisition of Wyeth could actually help Pfizer to implement this business model.

Coming back to generic business, the recent collaborative arrangement of Pfizer with Aurobindo Pharma in India vindicates Pfizer’s recent appetite on generic global pharmaceutical business. The company is already in this business with some of its off patent products. But now like others, Pfizer seems to be strategizing to reap a rich harvest from fast-growing generic pharmaceutical business through most probably its “Established Products” business division.

Could such business model of Global Pharmaceutical majors pose a threat to pure generic players in the business?

The entry of the global pharmaceutical majors into generic pharmaceutical business, in my view, could pose a serious threat to current generic players in the business, including those who are operating from India in the ‘regulated markets’ of the world, for the the following reasons:

1. Generic pharmaceutical business is usually a high volume, relatively low margin and highly competitive business. To survive in this business of cut-throat competition will require both financial and innovative marketing expertise, as well as financial and marketing muscle, where large global players are expected to easily score over others.

2. Product price of generics of the same or similar molecules being within a price band, prescribers and payors’ preference are expected to be in favour of large global pharmaceuticals, because of corporate brand image.

3. In future, the pharmaceutical marketing model, in my view, is expected to shift from ‘marketing of only medicines’ to ‘marketing of a bundle of medicines and services’. In the changed scenario global pharmaceutical majors are expected to have a distinct strategic advantage.

4. Global Pharmaceutical majors may also use this business model as a ‘preventive strategy’ to restrict market entry of number of players for an off-patent molecule and thereby effectively contain the extent of price erosion, as the brands will go off-patent.

It will, therefore, be quite interesting to watch, what happens in the global generic pharmaceutical business in the next five to ten years. I expect a significant consolidation taking place in this market, both global and local.

By Tapan Ray

Disclaimer: The views/opinions expressed in this article are entirely my own, written in my individual and personal capacity. I do not represent any other person or organization for this opinion.

Changing Business Model of Global Pharmaceutical Companies – a snapshot.

Posted on by
Reply
Mounting pressure on P&L account, as the products go off patent:
Patented new products are prime growth drivers of research based pharmaceutical companies all over the world. Since last few years, because of various reasons, the number of launch of such products has been significantly reduced. To add fuel to the fire, 2010-12 will witness patent expiries of many more blockbuster drugs, depleting their growth potential even further.

The blockbuster model of growth engine of innovator companies effectively relies on a limited number of ‘winning horses’ to achieve their business goal and meeting the Wall Street expectations. In 2007, depleting pipeline of the blockbuster drugs hit a new low in the developed markets of the world. It is estimated that around U.S. $ 140 billion of annual turnover from blockbuster drugs will get almost shaved off due to patent expiry by the year 2016. IMS reports that in 2010, sales revenue of more than U.S. $ 30 billion will be adversely impacted due to patent expiry. Another set of blockbuster drugs with similar value turnover will go off patent just the year after i.e. in 2011. It will not be out of context to mention, that last year around U.S. $ 27 billion worth of patented drugs had gone off-patent.

The decline in R&D productivity has not been due to lack of investments. It has been reported that between 1993-2004, R&D expenditure by the global pharmaceutical industry rose from U.S.$ 16 billion to around U.S.$ 40 billion. However, during the same period the number of applications for New Chemical Entities (NCEs) filed annually to the U.S. FDA grew by just 7%.

The global expenditure on R&D was reported to have reached U.S. $ 55.2 billion in 2006. 75% of this expenditure was incurred by the U.S alone. It is interesting to note that only 22 NMEs received marketing approval by the US FDA during this period against 53 in 1996, when R&D expenditure was almost less than half of what was incurred in 2006.

Be that as it may, the pressure on P&L (Profit and Loss) accounts of these companies indeed keeps mounting.

The silver linings:

However, there seem to be following two silver linings in the present global R&D scenario, as reported by IMS:

1. Number of Phase I and Phase II drugs in the pipeline is increasing.

2. Applications for clinical trials in the U.S. rose by 11.6% to a record high of 662, last year.

Significant growth of generic pharmaceuticals is expected in near future, far surpassing the patented products growth:

Patent expiry of so many blockbuster drugs during this period will fuel the growth of generic pharmaceutical business, especially in the large developed markets of the world. The market exclusivity for 180 days being given to the first applicant with a paragraph 4 certification in the U.S. is, indeed, a very strong incentive, especially for the generic companies of India.

Pressure on Marketing expenditure:

The marketing expenditure for pharmaceutical of the global pharmaceutical companies as reported by Scrip is U.S. $ 57.5 billion. However, an international pharmaceutical industry association reported that research based pharmaceutical companies in the U.S. spent $ 29.4 billion on R&D and $ 27.7 billion on promotional activities.

New Product Differentiation could be a challenge:

Products in R&D pipeline could face problems of ‘differentiation’ in terms of value offering to the patients, once they are launched. This issue is expected to surface particularly with products related to oncology disease area. IMS Health reports that about 55 oncology projects are now in Phase III and 8 in the pre-registration stage. Thus about 50 new oncology products are expected to hit the market by end 2010. Many experts anticipate that there may not be significant brand differentiation between the brands of the ‘same basket’, leading to cut-throat competition and further pressure on expenditure towards marketing of brands.

The changing business model of global pharmaceutical companies during this trying time:

In this trying time, the global pharmaceutical companies are resorting to an interesting strategy, combing both traditional and the new business strategies. In this article, I shall touch upon following six strategies:

1. Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A):

Mega M&A strategies are still being actively followed by some large Pharmaceutical companies mainly to enrich R&D pipeline and achieve both revenue and cost synergies.

However, some of these large global companies have started realizing that ‘powerhouses’ created through past mega mergers and acquisitions have now become too large to manage effectively for various reasons. Mismatch between two different organization cultures also throws a great challenge to obtain desired output, many a times. Moreover, the merged R&D set up could become too large to manage, impacting the R&D productivity quite adversely.

2. Extension of Product Life Cycle and Effective Product Life Cycle Management:

Many global pharmaceutical companies are now engaged in ‘product life cycle management’ of their existing products by extending the ‘product life cycle’, effectively. In that process they are trying to maximize the brand value of these products in the international markets. For example, AstraZeneca has developed once daily treatment for their anti-psychotic drug Seroquel XR. This extended-release formulation will help patients avoid 5 to 7-day titration required with the immediate-release version of the same drug.

Towards similar initiative, Pfizer has also recently set up a dedicated “Established Product Business Unit” within worldwide pharmaceutical operations, to hasten business growth in the international markets.

3. Prescription to OTC Switch:

Prescription to ‘Over the Counter’ (OTC) switch is another business strategy that many innovator companies are now imbibing much aggressively and at a much larger scale.

This strategy is helping many global pharmaceutical companies, especially in Europe and the U.S to expand the indication of the drugs and thereby widening the patients base.

Recent prescription to OTC switches will include products like, Losec (AstraZeneca), Xenical (Roche), Zocor (Merck), etc.

4. Emerging of Preventive Therapy, like Vaccines:

Many large global companies, like GSK, Sanofi Aventis and Merck are getting attracted to emerging opportunities in the fast developing vaccines market. This trend was triggered primarily by heightened awareness and greater focus on preventive medicines, almost all over the world. It is estimated that in 2011, the vaccines market will grow from U.S.$ 13 billion to U.S.$ 30 billion registering a growth of 18% each year during this period. PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) estimates vaccine market to be U.S. $ 42 billion by year 2015 based on data of 245 pure vaccines and 11 combination vaccines currently under clinical development. It is to be noted that 90 of these are therapeutic vaccines for cancer.

5. Entry into highly contentious market of Biosimilar drugs:

The Generic Pharmaceutical Association (GPhA) has estimated that it is possible to save US$ 10 billion – 108 billion over a period of 10 years with biosimilars in the top 12 categories of biological drugs. Some of these biological are already off patent and for others the patents will expire shortly.
Only a few biosimilar drugs have reached the global markets as on date. This is mainly because of regulatory restrictions for such drugs in most of the developed markets of the world. Even those biosimilar drugs, which have since been launched in Europe like, human growth hormone (HGH) Somatropin and Epoetin alfa for anemia, are yet to make a mark in the market place.

IMS Health reports that Omnitrope (somatropin) of Sandoz, the first biosimilar drug launched in the developed world, has registered less than 1% of the U.S. $ 831 million HGH market in Europe. Moreover, launch of 3 more biosimilar versions of epoetin alfa in 2007, made almost negligible impact in the market. Such a low acceptance of biosimilars in the western world, so far, could well be due to lingering safety concern of the medical profession with such types of drugs.

Currently, Japan and USA are working on formal guidelines for biosimilar drugs, whereas Health Canada has already issued draft regulatory guidelines for their approval in Canada.

6. Entry into Generic Markets:

Some large global pharmaceutical companies have already made a firm commitment to the generics market. Novartis paved the way for other innovator companies to follow this uncharted frontier as a global business strategy. Last year the generic business of Novartis (under Sandoz) recorded 19% of their overall net sales, with turnover from generics registering U.S$ 7.2 billion growing at 20%.

Keen business interest of Sanofi Aventis to acquire Zentiva, the generic pharmaceutical company of Czechoslovakia; it’s very recent acquisition of the generic pharmaceutical company Laboratorios Kendrick of Mexico and acquisition of Ranbaxy Laboratories of India by Daiichi Sankyo, will vindicate this point.

Pfizer has also maintained its generics presence with Greenstone in the U.S. and is using the company to launch generic versions of its own off patent products such as Diflucan (fluconazole) and Neurontin (gabapentin).

I guess that similar trend will continue, in future, as well.

Another ‘New Pharmaceutical Marketing Model’ is emerging:

Another ‘new pharmaceutical sales and marketing model’ is gradually emerging in the global markets. This model emphasizes partnership by bundling medicines with services. The key success factor, in this model, will depend on which company will offer better value with an integrated mix of medicines with services. PwC indicates that in this ‘new pharmaceutical marketing model’, besides required medicines, the expertise of a company to effectively deliver some key services like, patient monitoring and disease management could well be the key ingredients for success.

By Tapan Ray

Disclaimer: The views/opinions expressed in this article are entirely my own, written in my individual and personal capacity. I do not represent any other person or organization for this opinion.