Episode 128: Enabling Pharmaceutical Innovation with Mike Rea from IDEA Pharma
March 16, 201729:11

Episode 128: Enabling Pharmaceutical Innovation with Mike Rea from IDEA Pharma

Mike Rea has worked in global pharma strategy for over 25 years, working with the world’s top 30 pharmaceutical companies. Regarded as an industry thought leader in innovation, Mike helped lead the strategic direction of over 100 pharmaceutical brands, and created the industry standard annual Productive Innovation Index, a ranking of top 30 pharma by their ability to launch innovation.

Mike’s passion for industry change has inspired those around him, and IDEA Pharma’s clients, to think differently, to challenge the status quo and achieve strategic excellence. Under Mike’s guidance, IDEA has supported over 3 in 4 of ‘blockbuster contenders’ in industry pipelines (cited by FiercePharma), positioned the top 2 launches of 2015, and over half of the 50 fastest growing drugs in the 2010-15 window.

Individually, Mike has been:

  • Named as one of the 100 Most Inspiring People in Healthcare in 2011, 2013 and 2015, and was presented the Red Jacket Lifetime Achievement award in 2016 (PharmaVoice)

  • Voted one of Top 10 Innovators in Pharma (PharmaPhorum)

  • Acknowledged as the industry’s leading expert in early-phase Positioning, and has successfully positioned some of the world’s leading pharmaceutical products

  • Is leading the development of an industry Code of Ethics

Outside work, Mike owns an independent record label (Medical Records), organises the street food/ food truck festival MXMK, and cycles really slowly…


00:00 Using ‘Innovation’ incorrectly.
01:45 Why the textbook definition of Innovation matters within Healthcare.
02:30 “No Medicine is less useful than one that doesn’t make it to Patients.”
03:00 True Pharma Innovations that Mike is most excited about.
04:35 Mike explains what Med-Tech Devices are.
07:00 How EEGs are improving Healthcare.
08:30 Explaining ‘Electroceuticals’.
09:20 Explaining ‘Interventional AI’.
12:00 Finding funding and looking at profit realistically within Pharma Innovation.
16:20 “Creating Value based on other means.”
18:00 “There are so many different ways we could begin to think of different business relationships with our customers.”
21:45 How Payers fit into Care Pathways.
24:00 Why Pharma should be thinking about Innovation.
29:00 “For every assest is there a faster way to do this? Is there a bigger way to do this?”
31:00 You can find out more information at ideapharma.com or @ideapharma on twitter.

healthcare,health,pharma,marketing,innovation,idea pharma,pharmaceutical innovation,
|
|

Episode Support Provided By

Special Thanks to Our 2026 Sustaining Monthly Donors

Marilyn Bartlett, Kimberly Carleson, Dylan Yahn, Benjamin Light, Matt McQuideAnn Kempski, Spencer Allen, Scott Tromanhauser, 
Steven Elkins, Matthew Bunte, and Lori Smith.

Recent Episodes

EP519: The Current State of Primary Care—Inevitable or Fixable? With Lisa Rosenbaum, MD
Relentless Health ValueJuly 08, 2026
519
40:0036.61 MB

EP519: The Current State of Primary Care—Inevitable or Fixable? With Lisa Rosenbaum, MD

Listen on Your Favorite App Hello, all you Relentless Tribe members. Today, let's start here. Right now, we are watching a very visible exodus of brilliant, consummate primary care (and other, honestly) physicians leaving traditional practice for concierge medicine or otherwise. For a full transcrip...

EP518: How Do You Explain the Difference Between an ASO Vendor and a TPA? With Claire Brockbank
Relentless Health ValueJuly 01, 2026
518
14:2513.2 MB

EP518: How Do You Explain the Difference Between an ASO Vendor and a TPA? With Claire Brockbank

Listen on Your Favorite App Dr. Alex Sommers: Hi. I'm Alex Sommers. I'm president of Astia Health, an advanced direct primary care organization, an emergency medicine and lifestyle medicine physician, as well as a licensed employer health plan advisor from Wisconsin. I'm curious how you explain the ...

EP517: The Business of Prior Auths: The 401-Level Financial Motive Behind Prior Auths
Relentless Health ValueJune 24, 2026
517
27:2325.07 MB

EP517: The Business of Prior Auths: The 401-Level Financial Motive Behind Prior Auths

Listen on Your Favorite App Hello, Relentless Health Value Tribe. Welcome to it. So, yeah … last week, I had a great conversation with Ophelia Johnson ( EP516 ) that is a companion show, I would say, to this one. So, listen to that one first. Listen to this one first. You do you. For a full transcri...

EP516: GLP-1s and Cash Pay From the Pharma Manufacturer Point of View, With Ophelia Johnson
Relentless Health ValueJune 17, 202644:0540.35 MB

EP516: GLP-1s and Cash Pay From the Pharma Manufacturer Point of View, With Ophelia Johnson

Listen on Your Favorite App Hello, all you Relentless Tribe members. Welcome to it. Today we have a show that will bend your mind in new directions. And yes, I have a head cold at a very weird time of year. I have trouble apparently doing things like normal people. Anyway, we talk a lot on this podc...

EP515: SNF (Skilled Nursing Facility) Fraud—Or Is It Fraud? With Michelle Cera, PhD
Relentless Health ValueJune 10, 202643:0739.47 MB

EP515: SNF (Skilled Nursing Facility) Fraud—Or Is It Fraud? With Michelle Cera, PhD

Listen on Your Favorite App Hello, all you Relentless Tribe members. Lately, I have been just obsessed with what's hiding in plain sight: the root cause glitches in how American healthcare is built. Not the symptoms now. Not the noise. The actual ground zero. I mean, what we call healthcare in this ...

EP514: Successfully Suing a Health System for Their Anticompetitive Contracts and Also Collecting Damages for Plan Sponsors and Members, With Matt Cantor
Relentless Health ValueJune 03, 2026
514
43:4340.02 MB

EP514: Successfully Suing a Health System for Their Anticompetitive Contracts and Also Collecting Damages for Plan Sponsors and Members, With Matt Cantor

Listen on Your Favorite App Hello, all you Relentless Tribe members. This is the third episode in our legal goings-on trifecta, starting with Doug Aldeen in episode 512 covering what amounts to the main reasons plan sponsors wind up suing their brokers or employee benefit consultants. For a full tra...

EP513: Revisiting Cunning Anticompetitive Hospital Contracts, With Brennan Bilberry

EP513: Revisiting Cunning Anticompetitive Hospital Contracts, With Brennan Bilberry

Listen on Your Favorite App If you are a large employer, union funds broker, fiduciary, or anyone responsible for a health plan that spends half of its dollars on hospital care (which most do), or if you have anything to do with policy or enforcement of policy, yeah … listen this week and next week....

Listen and Follow

Sponsored by Aventria Health Group
©2026 BD Bridges LLC. All Rights Reserved.