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Mention barter and many people think it was something those ancients did by swapping things for food and vice versa when money wasn’t around. Its time to wake up dude! You have been there, done that. You have bartered as kids. Remember those super h

According to USFDA, a combination product is one composed of any combination of a drug and device; biological product and device; drug and biological product

ero comics you got for the baseball cards your pal didn’t have? Well, the news is, barter as a form of business is alive and kicking, and making fast inroads into modern trade.

A standard dictionary defines barter as trading goods or services without

; or drug, device, and biological product and fixed dose combination would include two or more combinations of drug.

Examples of combination products may in

he exchange of money. It is conducted between two parties who have products or services that each other need. The key word here is ‘need’. In ancient times, if a toolmaker wanted eggs, he could only get them if the egg dealer wanted tools. And

lude drug-coated devices, drugs packaged with delivery devices in medical kits, and drugs and devices packaged separately but intended to be used together.

if he didn’t, the toolmaker very well went without eggs. Or he went right back and clobbered the egg dealer silly with his tools to get those eggs! Err… this latter exchange may not qualify as bartering!

Since antiquity all societies successfully

here is enormous increase in the number of combination products entering the market in the recent years. Combination products have proven advantages but fixe

racticed barter as an accepted medium of exchange. In the not so distant past, doctors were being paid in chickens, apples or other farm produce! Then money made its appearance and became the lifeblood of business. And bartering was thought to ha

d dose combinations are still in the process of convincing regulatory authority on their advantages over the single ingredient formulations.

Combination pro

ve died a natural death.

Nothing could have been further from the truth. Bartering thrived all along, albeit on a low key. Take the case of the communist countries during the cold war. Barter often played an important role in trade for them, as th

ucts have become life saving products for the pharmaceutical companies who doesn’t have many innovative molecules in their product pipeline and have been inc

ir currencies were not readily convertible. Or take the case of Germany after the two world wars. Bartering became their prime means of exchange at the retail level, as currencies collapsed due to hyperinflation. So, barter saved the day for thes

easingly used in the product life cycle management. Even the companies having product patents are trying to extend their product life cycle through the combi

e countries.

Glyn Davies very rightly observes in A History of Money from Ancient Times to the Present Day that “barter has, undeservedly, been given a bad name in conventional economic writing, and its alleged crudities have been much exaggerated

nation products and maximize the revenues. But the companies involved in this practice are overlooking that they are burdening the patients both economically

. Barter has survived to this day. Why? Simply because people needed it then, as they need it now, only the methods have changed.

In the modern day, the advent of computers not only revolutionized the world, it also facilitated a sudden resurgen

and physically. They need to rightly judge the benefits of the combination products and they have to even look at the risks involved when combining the produ

ce of bartering. The tremendous capabilities of this new technology of tracking barter transactions and maintaining huge inventories made bartering an easy and inexpensive form of trading. The spread of barter exchanges, which create markets for

ts. Some of the combination products were well accepted by physicians while others suffered. Companies involved in development of combination products are fi

raders, has also fueled its spread. Bartering has become serious business and comes under the purview of the income tax and the sales tax departments.

Today, it is amazing to see what all can be obtained through barter… computer hardware and sof

ding difficulty in defining their combination products and facing various challenges from selecting a combination to marketing it.

Following aspects would a

ware, household items, jewelry, books, CDs, movies, hotel accommodations, real estate, etc. The list may well be endless! Barter is big business and getting bigger with every passing day.

Bartering is becoming popular because it offers some excell

dd to the challenges in developing combination products:

Which markets to tap where the combination products can do fairly well?
Which combination prod

ent benefits. It saves cash and increases profits by boosting the bottom line. It strengthens relationships because of closer interaction with barter customers. It generates new business, as barter customers often end up becoming cash customers o

cts are meaningful and rational?
Which therapeutic categories to select?
Which Combinations can address unmet needs of the patients?
Do combin

rope in others. It helps market business in ways not otherwise possible by attracting certain customers that are otherwise difficult to obtain. It helps to move surplus stock that will otherwise lie unsold. And it has the potential to expand the

tions increase the patient compliance?
What would be the developing cost?
How to tackle the risks encountered during combination product developmen

market area dramatically.

No wonder when considering funding applications, venture capitalists are increasingly evaluating the ability of applicants to barter. That barter is gaining legitimacy as a corporate asset is demonstrated by the many sem

t?

As combination products don't fit into the traditional categories of drugs, medical devices, or biological products, the USFDA is in the process of devel

nars targeting Corporate Finance Officers.

Businesses generally use two types of barter. The one-on-one bartering, which is the true form of bartering involving two parties, and third party bartering that uses some form of currency to allow more

ping new procedures for reviewing their safety, efficacy and quality.

Professional from academic institutions, pharmaceutical industries, health care indust

dynamic exchange between the parties involved.

If statistics provided by the International Reciprocal Trade Association are anything to go by, barter today is a huge six-billion-dollar business-to-business hit worldwide. And this figure is expe

y and representatives from various regulatory agencies are working out to design the regulatory requirements for manufacture and sale of combination products

ted to grow by more than ten percent annually.

If you are not already bartering, you should probably consider it. There are numerous ways to find barter deals online. You can search for online barter websites, join online barter clubs or contribut

.

As there is an increasing trend of the combination products companies manufacturing such products should be able to tackle the problems involved in the de

e to bartering newsgroups. If you have your own website, you can set up barter message boards or chat rooms to get barter offers.

For better or for worse, barter is here to stay, making business lucrative to the cash-rich and the cash-strapped a

elopment. They need to be wiser in analyzing the market trends and the regulatory requirements.

Companies that provide selfless information through particip

ike. Edmund Burke has rightly noted in his speech on the occasion of Conciliation of America in the 1700s that, “All government – indeed, every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue and every prudent act – is founded on compromise and barter”

tion in industry events and feedback to regulatory authorities would be able to face the challenges and will be successful in developing combination products

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Seasoned online marketers sometimes get carried away using words and phrases that new marketers don't understand. When marketing, it's important to keep terms simple and easy to understand.

Your company has made the important decision to make trade show exhibit appearance a part of its marketing program, and you now need to create a game plan that will help you select your appropriate trade shows. You know that exhibiting at the right trade shows can bring successful leads and sales, while the wrong trade shows can waste your company’s time, money and energy. It is essential to make the right decision. But how do you start?

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Digg It - For 'Barter' or for Worse, this Trade is Here to Stay!

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