How Biopharma Consulting Firms Can Plan and Adapt to Dynamic Market Trends and Regulations

By Allison Murphy

The biopharma industry is a whirlwind of innovation, regulation, and constant evolution. Staying ahead of the curve can feel like running a marathon, but what if you had a training partner who knew the shortcuts? The training partner might know the entire route or have particular expertise in one area, the beginning, the finish line, or the hills in between. If the marathon runner is a rookie, they may need more help mapping the entire route. If they are a veteran marathoner, they may need training to improve their performance.

Within Biopharma Consulting, firms play a crucial role as partner, helping companies navigate this intricate terrain and bringing their novel therapies to the market. Still, traditional methods of planning and execution are no longer enough. The demand for efficiency, accuracy, and data-driven insights has never been higher. The role of consultants should be to solve for challenges only their intellect and experience can address. Today, groundbreaking innovation can bear the burden of the details. It’s time for consulting firms to embrace technology and leverage its power to deliver superior value to their clients and increase the likelihood of success.

The days of purely advisory services are fading. Today's successful consulting firms must be strategic partners, powered by technology, especially when they are providing end-to-end support from clinical trials to launch. Why the shift?

The Limitations of Traditional Methods in Biopharma Consulting

Firms that consult to the biopharma industry fall into the following categories:

• Strategy consultants that provide enterprise-wide support
• Domain area consultants that provide expertise in an area, i.e. financial services, commercialization, clinical development
• Embedded support or fractional consultants that augment staff needs
• Ad hoc, special project consulting support

For years, the conventional approach in biopharma consulting firms has been to kick off a project with a series of workshops to align on project goals, ensure a shared understanding of assumptions, and collaborate to identify the issues. This approach still has tremendous value but is time-consuming, requires client bandwidth, and often still results in the consultant team building institutional knowledge that leaves when the engagement ends.

Whether building a multi-year commercialization roadmap or facilitating the last 18 months’ tactical launch plan, the human-centered approach with Excel or Smartsheet outputs is rarely scalable or reproducible for the next asset.

While these methods have served their purpose, they often fall short in today's fast-paced biopharma environment, where timelines shift, team members change, and resources are constrained.

As an industry, we need to set expectations for ourselves and our consulting partners to improve our commercialization efforts to address:

• Time-Consuming Processes: Manual data entry and analysis can be time-consuming, costly, and prone to errors.
• Lack of Real-time Insights: Traditional methods often lack the ability to provide real-time data and insights.
• Difficulty in Collaboration: Remote collaboration, functional silos, and version control can be challenging with traditional tools.
• Limited Scalability: As projects grow in complexity, conventional methods may struggle to keep up.

Consulting partners must empower their biopharma clients with the tools and knowledge to implement strategies and manage resources independently. Firms should help clients efficiently address patient needs by focusing on building capabilities and streamlining the path to market.

To remain competitive, consulting firms must embrace technology solutions that streamline processes, improve data accuracy, and enhance collaboration even if it reduces the hourly invoice. Consultants can provide more value to their clients, accelerate time to market, and drive better patient outcomes by leveraging advanced platforms, tools, and solutions.

The Days of Purely Advisory Services are Fading

Complexity is on the rise. New molecules, intricate therapies, and evolving regulations are making drug development a labyrinth. This puts pressure on both pharmaceutical companies and consulting firms. The name of the game is efficiency, and that's where technology and data become the ultimate weapon.

The newest SaaS (software-as-a-service) solutions can aggregate and synthesize data from various sources, creating a single source of truth for strategic planning and decision-making. Consultants can uncover hidden insights, identify emerging trends, and optimize resource allocation by harnessing the power of AI and machine learning. No longer constrained by disparate spreadsheets and manual processes, consultants can focus on high-value activities and deliver superior outcomes for their clients.

Making Data-driven Decisions

By harnessing the power of advanced analytics, consulting firms can gain a competitive edge. These tools enable them to forecast future trends, identify potential risks, and optimize resource allocation, leading to more informed and strategic decisions. This data-driven approach not only enhances efficiency but also enables consultants to tailor their strategies to the specific needs of each client.

Moreover, by automating routine tasks like data collection and analysis, consultants can free up valuable time to focus on building stronger client relationships. This increased efficiency allows for more strategic thinking and personalized client engagement, ultimately leading to improved client satisfaction and loyalty.

Ultimately, the integration of data and analytics into consulting practices can help firms deliver superior outcomes for their clients, drive business growth, and solidify their position as trusted advisors in the biopharma industry.

The biopharma landscape is ever-changing, but with the right tools and a strategic mindset, both consulting firms and pharmaceutical companies can navigate the complexities and deliver groundbreaking treatments to patients in need.

At Corval, we believe in the power of collaboration and technology to instill confidence, bring clarity, drive efficiency, and accelerate innovation. We have built a fully integrated, pre-populated, multi-year commercialization and launch planning solution that can be customized by the client or in partnership with their consulting firm to define the path and resources to get an asset to the patient. Once the path is clear, the client and their expert partners can collaborate to address the hurdles along the way.

For more information on how Corval can provide the single source of truth for biopharma consulting firms, reach out to one of our commercialization experts today.