A Value-Driven Commercialization Strategy for Pharmaceutical Assets
An optimal commercialization strategy for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies is vital for the value maximization of the company. Early-stage, as well as developed pharma and biotech companies, invariably make decisions on what assets they should develop or what indications they should prioritize. We, BiopharmVantage, have been involved in several such projects and helped pharma and biotech companies devise an optimal commercialization strategy. Numerous factors need to be considered, and we describe some of them below.
Strategic Intent of the Organization
In order to adopt an optimal strategy, it is vital that the company knows its objective. The objective of companies varies depending on the developmental stage of the company itself, sources of funding, and so on. An early-stage investor-funded pharma/biotech company might prefer a model of partnering its assets during the developmental stage. On the other hand, a large company might want to develop and commercialize its assets by itself.
Starting from the Markets
This is a ‘top-down’ approach, which is based on the belief that the companies succeed if they operate in attractive markets. Under this approach, we identify attractive indications for which the company could develop the asset. This situation is akin to having a key but not knowing what lock that key would open. Considering the pathways that assets target are shared across multiple indications, identifying attractive indications is a resource-intensive task and often unrealistic. It involves the collection of data for most indications covering market size, current competition, pipeline competition, etc. The significant drawbacks of this approach are the following:
- There is a good possibility that the market/indications identified using the above top-down approach are commercially attractive, but the asset might not work in those indications.
- Usually, pharma assets often work in a sub-segment of indications (e.g., biomarker A positive cancer B). Such segmental indications are not likely to be identified if we start from the markets.
Starting from the Mode of Action
This is a ‘bottom-up’ approach. In this approach, we shortlist indications where the asset’s mode of action (MoA) is likely to work. The identification of the universe of such indications is made using a thorough review of scientific literature and publications. For early-stage assets, it involves identifying indications via analysis of gene expression data, preliminary in vitro and in vivo studies, and often comes from the R&D team.
We take an integrated approach in devising commercialization strategy for pharma and biotech assets – we combine the bottom-up and top-down approach i.e., first, we identify all those indications where assets MoA is likely to work, and second, we look at the external market data to assess the attractiveness of various indications. The advantages of the combined approach are the following:
- We screen only those indications where assets have a likelihood of success and thus, do not identify ‘on-paper’ indications.
- We reduce the resource consumption which accrues in the characterization of attractive indications when we adopt a top-down approach.
- We increase the ‘probability of success which is one the greatest determinants of value-inflection, thus leading to a robust and value-maximizing commercialization strategy for various stakeholders in the organization.
BiopharmaVantage is a specialist healthcare consulting firm that provides strategy consulting services to pharmaceutical, biotechnology, diagnostics, and wider healthcare companies and investors. If you would like to explore how we can assist you, then please contact us.