Go-to-market in the pharma industry

We supported a leading player in the pharmaceutical industry in redesigning its sales approach to prescribers to make it more digital. The Covid-19 crisis having strongly impacted the usual interactions of the sales force with physicians, our client wanted to rethink their entire go-to-market approach on the ‘customer experience’ part to develop a new, fully digital approach and differentiating from the competition.

By identifying trends and benchmarking key non-pharma stakeholders in their digital sales approach, and by analyzing physicians’ receptivity to pre-identified ideas, we supported our client’s sales and marketing team in defining their new customer experience, from inspiration to the implementation of new practices within the field team.

We helped a leading pharmaceutical company to develop a strategy for the launch of two new radiopharmaceutical products.

To this end, our teams carried out an in-depth analysis of competing radiopharmaceutical treatments and their use on the market (profiles of patients and specialists prescribing them, typology of centers using them). This analysis highlighted the obstacles to prescribing, the expected results of these treatments, and enabled the identification of the differentiating features of our customer’s products. Finally, we analyzed the economic potential of radiopharmaceutical treatments (level of reimbursement, average cost per patient, etc.) and defined a positioning consistent with market reality and our customer’s objectives.

Ultimately, our project enabled our client to define its clinical development roadmap for its two radiopharmaceutical products, their strategic positioning and an appropriate commercial strategy for launching them on the market.

Alcimed worked with a top pharmaceutical client to prepare and define their 2030 R&D strategy by understanding the main trends in rare genetic diseases in neurology and pediatric oncology.

To do so, we identified the 4 key steps that lead to a successful launch of new products for rare diseases : Clinical development, Manufacturing, Regulatory and Pricing, Go-to-market models.

Then, thanks to the interviews undertaken by the team with other laboratories working on rare diseases, we gathered all the best practices and successful examples for the launch of new therapies in this area. At the end, our team built an analysis framework summarizing the key insights which led to recommendations about the client’s R&D strategy on rare diseases.

This investigation enabled the client to define the market opportunities for rare genetic diseases and viable business models in adequation to their strategy.

As seen before, one current limitation of mAbs is their delivery mode, that can restrict their access. One of our clients, a large biotech player, was developing a new Mab, from formulation to packaging.

On top of scientific and medical considerations, our client wanted to improve the patient and HCP experience with the product itself, during administration notably. We then mapped and characterized the current market standards for secondary packing on high-value injectables including mAbs.

The reception of such secondary packaging from both healthcare providers and patients was assessed to make critical packaging design decisions for a new product for the treatment of moderate-to-severe atopic dermatitis nearing market launch.

Alcimed studied, on behalf of a pharmaceutical company, the regulatory constraints related to the marketing and P&R (price and reimbursement) of personalized medicine products on the markets for the US, Japan, France, Belgium, Germany and UK. In particular, we assessed the specificities of each country and the procedures to be followed for the co-development of a CDx with a drug.

After having understood and compared the measures in place between the geographical areas, we have drawn up a table of the regulatory changes expected in the short and medium term for each area. This step was the subject of the creation of a guide of good practices to be put in place to deal with regulatory challenges, intended for our client’s local subsidiaries.

Finally, we identified the issues around pricing and reimbursement terms to advise our client on the preferred business model to optimize its launch.

In anticipation of launching their first product, Alcimed helped a up and coming biotech company assess their manufacturing capabilities and logistics to identify potential bottlenecks in ramping up to full scale production.

Alcimed specifically surveyed the manufacturing plan for raw material sourcing to ensure sufficient supply of key ingredients from reliable partners.

The client was able to make key partnership and purchasing decisions to ensure that their manufacturing scale up had the correct contracts in place for both primary suppliers and secondary suppliers in order to smoothly transition in house from solely pre-clinical development to full scale manufacturer.

We assisted a leading company in the field of CAR-T therapies in preparing the launch of its new treatment and in defining its market access go-to-market strategy in the US, Canada and Europe. CAR-Ts are highly personalized technologies that require a high level of specialization to be delivered to patients, and therefore not all healthcare facilities are ready to administer them. In this context, and in order to define the market access go-to-market strategy for its new treatment, we helped our client to:

1. Understand and identify which centers would have the capacity to deliver CAR-T.
2. Analyze the bottlenecks to approval this new product in the relevant markets.
3. Consequently, define the actions to be implemented to ensure access to their new CAR-T therapy.

Following an investigation of over 200 healthcare centers in the US, Canada and Europe, our analysis enabled us to recommend to our client the key next steps to take to ensure their new product launch, including developing the skills of each center and facilitating rapid market access for their new treatment.

Alcimed assisted a pharmaceutical company in the launch of its new product for the treatment of a hemopathy in France.

To define the right strategic and communication axes for the product launch, we investigated the current care pathway, particularly with regard to the use of blood transfusion, the reference treatment for the pathology, in order to identify the main pain points and better characterize the current burden of the disease, not only for patients, but also for hospitals.

Following an investigation carried out with hematologists, nurses, biologists, patient associations and KOLs, we were able to provide our client with a detailed understanding of the current ecosystem for managing this pathology and the unmet needs of all stakeholders, beyond the direct prescribers. This contributed to the clear identification of the new product’s expectations and strengths. Alcimed was thus able to define the positioning and messages that would guarantee a successful launch.