Reuters Events | Pharma

Thought leadership and innovation for the Pharmaceutical Industry

Sometimes we make things way more complicated than they need to be. That's no surprise really.

Sometimes we make things way more complicated than they need to be. That's no surprise really. The stakes are high: decade long (or more) development timelines, multi-million dollar budgets, multi-billion dollar companies...

Perhaps nowhere in our organizations are the realities of the magnitude of our decisions more apparent than to those who try to forecast our futures. But that said, perhaps nowhere is it more important to take a step back and simplify our approaches and take stock of the assumptions we make than it is in forecasting.

Miriam Stache, senior European demand forecasting manager for Lilly, has a good grasp of what's at stake, but also on the importance keeping our eyes on the simple things. The title of Miriam's presentation at the recent eyeforpharma Pharmaceutical Forecasting Excellence Summit 2009 was New Products: Use next to nothing to predict everything and she took the opportunity to remind us that when forecasting for new products in underdeveloped markets everything becomes a judgment call.

We really have no product statistics, market data or quantifiable past history to rely on, we only have our experience, intuition, imagination to guide us. But simply recognizing that is the biggest hurdle and the key factor, Miriam says, in generating smart, useful, accurate forecasts.

Be sure to read the full summary of Miriam's presentation here