Drug Commercialization Services for Bringing Pharmaceutical Products to Market

by Dora Bibila

Your emerging pharmaceutical asset is poised to offer life-changing benefits for patients. What critical steps should your company take now, to improve your chance of success in the marketplace? The answer lies in a solid commercialization strategy.

Much broader than launch planning, commercialization is a mindset that spans all aspects of drug development and go-to-market strategy. Commercialization also includes a set of essential activities that prepare the market and your company to deliver your product to the patients you serve—optimizing value for everyone involved.

Why Early Planning Is Critical

Commercialization is a complex, multidimensional, multiyear process that should start early in the clinical development program (Late Phase 1 or early Phase 2) and continue through preparation for launch and beyond. This strategic process includes:

Market and landscape assessments
Target product profile to inform development efforts and clinical trial design
Brand strategy, including positioning
Medical affairs strategy, scientific data generation, and dissemination
Market access strategy and planning
Patient advocacy strategy, planning, and input
Lifecycle management
Ongoing input to product development
And more

With so many complex workstreams in play, early commercialization planning can be the deciding factor between a product’s success and failure. Overlooking or shortchanging this process can create delays and mistakes that impact patients who need these technologies and companies that need the sales. The impact can be experienced for years to come.

On the other hand, a well-designed commercialization strategy and plan unlocks maximum value and impact throughout the product lifecycle.

Pharma Commercialization Services Overview

Many biopharma companies turn to third-party drug commercialization services to augment their team’s expertise and capabilities. These resources and solutions can run the gamut from compliance, to technology transfer to manufacturing and packaging — as well as market-driven services aimed at educating health care providers, payers and patients.

Your company's stage and associated risks should factor into your decision to outsource commercialization activities. Outsourcing can benefit many early-stage companies, particularly those in Phase II that are focusing on data progression and securing funding—and lack the time or expertise needed for commercialization.

Options for Market-Centered Pharma Commercialization Services

Generally speaking, consultants and service providers are your main resources for pharma commercialization services to support success in the market. Depending on your company’s specific needs, it may make sense to use a combination of these options, but understanding your needs and aligning the external support with that need is essential.

Consultants

Individual consultants can fill specific expertise gaps in functional areas such as medical affairs or market access. Consultants allow you to build a commercialization strategy and early capabilities without the immediate pressure to hire an in-house team. You can work with experts who are eager to support emerging firms, while mitigating risks related to funding and data uncertainties.

The challenges with this option include the “n of one” perspective and the fragmentation that can be caused by working with multiple consultants. It is also critical to ensure that there is a baked-in knowledge transfer to ensure you build internal institutional knowledge.

Consulting firms offer many of the benefits of individual consultants on a greater scale, often with a specific focus on strategy, access to multiple skill sets and areas of expertise, and a large-enough team to support implementation. Emerging biopharma companies need to decide whether a smaller boutique firm will meet their needs or they need the scale (and can afford the higher price tag) of a larger “brand name” firm. A combination could help optimize costs.

Service Providers and Agencies

Commercialization service providers and agencies sometimes offer diverse services along the entire commercialization continuum, including personnel instead of in-house hires. Other agencies specialize in one area, such as market access, brand communications, human resources, data analytics, and product/investor relations.

The Need for Unified Planning

Third-party consultants and providers play a valuable role in commercialization. But the biopharma industry has historically suffered from fragmented, static planning efforts that are rarely customized to the individual circumstances of that company and their assets.

Biopharma companies typically lack a single source of truth to unify all of their commercialization planning, leading them to omit or duplicate critical activities. And it’s often difficult and time-consuming to update a plan when a consultant or solution provider engagement ends.

In today’s rapidly changing environment, successful commercialization requires an integrated plan that brings together the right resources, at the right time. With the ever-changing market landscape, a tech-enabled planning platform would provide a:

Single source of truth across all your commercialization efforts
Cross-functional, multi-year plan that’s based on industry benchmarks and includes interdependencies
Budget plan, so you know what to do, when to do it and how much it will cost
Hiring plan, so you can determine how and when to deploy outside resources, including third-party consultants and providers
Flexible updates as assumptions change during the multiyear planning period

Compared with the fragmented approach that is standard in the industry today, technology-enabled solutions offer a more strategic approach to drug commercialization planning. The right commercialization platform allows your team to start early and take a broader view to help ensure you have the right data, talent, and capabilities in place—at the right time—to achieve the maximum value of your asset.

How Corval Empowers Your Pharma Commercialization Strategy

Corval is a strategic planning platform that enables teams to quickly create a customized, multi-year commercialization roadmap with a companion budget and resource plan. Corval brings decades of expertise and 75,000+ data points into an elegant interface that provides a single source of truth and multi-user access. Our robust platform helps you confidently address the high-stakes challenges of bringing your product to market.

Using a dynamic and flexible tool like Corval, you can see the full multi-year roadmap, understand costs, and stage-gate implementation. This allows you to use resources more efficiently and responsibly by properly sequencing your commercialization activities and building your team appropriately. For instance, your team might focus on gathering the right clinical data to differentiate your drug before creating a reimbursement strategy. The right planning tool also allows you to get the most from consultants and service providers by engaging them at the right stage in the process.

Final thoughts

An integrated plan that aligns commercialization efforts with appropriate timelines and strategies is essential for successfully bringing a drug to market while maintaining a commitment to patient needs. Building an experienced, collaborative team, whether in-house or outsourced, is key to delivering on this plan.

Technology takes your team a step further, by helping you move faster and be more effective in your commercialization efforts. The right software platform with the right service and support will help you anticipate the future—and ultimately, reach patients who are waiting for your transformative offering.

Need help figuring out your options? Reach out today and speak to one of our commercialization experts.