Season 1 Episode 3: Preparing for a Launch Pharma's High Stakes Gamble

This video provides an in-depth exploration of the high-stakes challenge of preparing for and ensuring launch success in the pharmaceutical industry, with a particular focus on rare diseases. Featuring Florian Schnappauf from Veeva Systems and Andy Eeckhout, Commercial Excellence Lead at ADVANZ PHARMA, the discussion delves into ADVANZ PHARMA's unique journey from a generics company to an innovator in specialized medicines, biosimilars, and rare diseases. Eeckhout shares his extensive experience, emphasizing the critical role of commercial excellence, cross-functional collaboration, data utilization, and technology in navigating complex market landscapes and optimizing patient and customer experiences.

The conversation progresses from Eeckhout's personal journey into pharma to defining commercial excellence as the comprehensive effort required to prepare for and sustain product promotion, particularly highlighting the importance of a strong launch pipeline. A significant portion of the discussion is dedicated to the unique complexities of launching products in the rare disease space, where market knowledge, stakeholder identification, and patient journeys are often less defined. Eeckhout elaborates on how ADVANZ PHARMA leverages data, including insights from platforms like Veeva Link, for targeting and segmentation, and adapts its multi-channel strategies based on direct feedback from healthcare professionals (HCPs).

The dialogue further explores the crucial interplay between commercial and medical teams, noting ADVANZ PHARMA's lean structure and open communication channels as key enablers for effective pre-launch activities and strategy definition. Eeckhout candidly discusses challenges such as balancing new launch preparations with ongoing business demands and resource limitations. He underscores the importance of data in measuring KPIs and maintaining flexibility to adapt strategies post-launch. The discussion culminates in a forward-looking perspective on enhancing customer experience through continuous feedback and a shift from traditional, volume-based engagement models to more personalized, customer-centric approaches, especially vital in the nuanced rare disease landscape.

Key Takeaways:

• Commercial Excellence is Foundational for Launch Success: Commercial excellence encompasses all preparatory and ongoing support activities required to effectively promote a product, involving cross-functional strategy definition from market access to marketing and medical affairs.
• Technology is Pivotal, Especially Post-COVID: CRM systems are crucial for tracking information and managing customer interactions. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the adoption of technology to enable alternative engagement channels when face-to-face interactions were limited, highlighting the need for robust digital solutions.
• Rare Disease Launches Present Unique Complexities: Preparing for a rare disease launch is significantly more challenging due to unknown markets, difficulty identifying key stakeholders, and less established patient journeys, necessitating extensive exploratory work and cross-functional collaboration.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration is Essential: A lean organizational structure and open communication between departments, particularly medical and commercial, are vital for sharing pre-launch insights, defining strategies, and ensuring alignment, overcoming traditional "silo" challenges.
• Data Drives Targeting, Segmentation, and Strategy Adaptation: Data is crucial for defining physician targets, segmentation, and call planning. Platforms like Veeva Link provide valuable intelligence for identifying key stakeholders, while internal CRM data allows for continuous measurement of KPIs and flexible adaptation of strategies based on field insights.
• Balancing New Launches with Ongoing Business is a Key Challenge: Managing a robust launch pipeline while sustaining focus and investment in existing products and channels requires careful prioritization and resource allocation, often leading to demanding workloads for specialized teams like CRM and digital.
• Customer Experience is a Critical Differentiator: In competitive markets, especially rare diseases, an optimal customer experience is paramount. This involves actively seeking feedback from stakeholders on preferred channels and discussion topics, continuous training for field teams, and tailoring engagement strategies to meet specific needs.
• Comprehensive Patient Journey Analysis is Indispensable: Understanding the patient journey from diagnosis through treatment, including experiences across multiple specialties often involved in rare diseases, is crucial for developing effective tactics and key messages for stakeholders.
• High-Quality Field Data Enhances Strategic Decision-Making: Capturing crucial information from the field in a compliant and easily analyzable manner (e.g., through CRM pre-launch modules for MSLs and KAMs) ensures that insights on leading physicians, prescribers, influencers, and barriers are leveraged effectively.
• Diverse Stakeholder Engagement Requires Tailored CRM: Field teams interact with various stakeholders beyond physicians, including nurses, payers, and pharmacists. CRM systems must be configured to capture interactions with these diverse groups and enable multi-channel engagement for all relevant customer types.
• Shift from Classical to Customer-Centric Engagement: The industry must move away from classical, prescriptive engagement models (e.g., fixed interaction counts or key messages) towards a more customer-centric approach that prioritizes stakeholder feedback on preferred channels and communication content.
• Artificial Intelligence Holds Promise for Data Integration: AI could significantly enhance the analysis of both external (vendor, market research) and internal (CRM) data sources, helping to match and synthesize information to provide deeper insights and support better decision-making.
• Global Guidance with Local Flexibility is Key for Multi-Country Operations: In companies with a commercial presence across multiple countries, global strategies and guidance must allow for local adaptation, recognizing that each country may have different market dynamics, commercial models, and stakeholder approaches.

Tools/Resources Mentioned:

• Veeva CRM: A customer relationship management system specifically designed for the pharmaceutical industry, used for tracking interactions, managing customer data, and supporting commercial operations.
• Veeva Link: A platform mentioned for gathering intelligence on key opinion leaders (KOLs) and stakeholders, particularly useful for identifying experts in new or rare disease areas.

Key Concepts:

• Commercial Excellence: A strategic approach focused on optimizing all commercial activities, from strategy definition to execution and support, to achieve superior market performance and launch success.
• Rare Disease Launch: The complex process of introducing a new pharmaceutical product for a rare disease, characterized by unique challenges such as limited patient populations, specialized medical communities, and often undefined market landscapes.
• Customer Journey: The entire experience a customer (e.g., a healthcare professional or patient) has with a company or product, from initial awareness through engagement, treatment, and ongoing support.
• Multi-channel/Omni-channel Strategy: An approach to customer engagement that utilizes multiple communication channels (e.g., face-to-face, email, digital platforms, events) to provide a seamless and integrated experience, tailored to customer preferences.
• Targeting & Segmentation: The process of identifying and categorizing specific groups of customers (e.g., physicians) based on their characteristics, needs, and potential influence, to focus commercial efforts more effectively.
• Adoption Ladders: A framework used to track the progression of a customer's engagement and acceptance of a product or message, often used by field teams to guide interactions.

Examples/Case Studies:

• ADVANZ PHARMA's Transformation: The company's strategic shift from a generics focus to innovative medicines, specialized generics, biosimilars, and rare diseases, highlighting the complexities and opportunities of such a transition.
• Veeva Link for KOL Identification: ADVANZ PHARMA's use of Veeva Link to identify key stakeholders and gather information on rare diseases, aiding in targeting and segmentation efforts.
• CRM Pre-Launch Module: The implementation of a specific module within Veeva CRM to capture crucial pre-launch information from MSLs in the field, such as leading physicians, prescribers, and influencers in key accounts, ensuring compliant and useful data collection.