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Dr. Andree K. Bates on how to develop launch plans that maximize commercial viability

By Dr Andree Bates on May 10, 2012

No matter how much you plan ahead, new drug development is inherently risky. The potential to spend a large amount of time and money without appropriate return or necessary success is large. Thorough, long-range pre-launch planning goes a long way toward increasing the odds of success. However, sometimes it’s not enough.

Pharma managers and marketers need a way to assess the potential for a new product and the likelihood of success upon launch. What factors will positively affect launch and drive market penetration? What should companies watch out for that could derail years of planning? Some project and brand teams make a fundamental mistake early in their drug’s development lifecycles: They fail to adequately prepare the market for their products. As a result, product launches can fail to grow as their companies had hoped.

During years leading up to a launch, product planners and marketing leaders must develop commercial launch plans that will maximize their product’s commercial viability and allow the product to grow and thrive. In addition, they must ensure that the logistical aspects of the launch are managed expertly and in coordination with one another.

Conducting such a complex array of strategic and tactical preparations can be extremely challenging, and mistakes can be costly. Early-stage commercialization and market preparation deficiencies often are the result of insufficient or inadequate planning. Studies on implementation show that the key areas of deficiency in launch failures are analytics on message effectiveness, promotional budget allocation, and promotional strategy revision.

Key questions

Throughout the multiple phases of pre-launch planning, sophisticated analytics can help answer key questions, supporting your process and removing dangerous uncertainty.

• What are the key market drivers for your therapeutic category?

• What are the strengths of your competitors? What vulnerabilities are possible to exploit?

• What is the best way to segment the market for maximum sales?

• How should you position the brand for maximum financial impact?

• What price point will get maximum sales?

• What are your optimal allocations for maximum growth?

• How can you allocate sales and marketing budgets across activities at launch?

• How do you divide your budgets for optimal market share and sales gain?

• What is the commercial potential of your brand with your current clinical trial data? How about with additional clinical trial data?

• If you do further clinical trials, what financial return will this provide?

• How can you grow patient demand without being able to market the drug?

• What messages will drive brand growth most?

• Will your planned messages give your brand maximum growth?

• Have you positioned the brand to capture maximum launch market share?

• How can you quantify the potential impact from each activity before implementation?

• What are your optimal sales and marketing activities?

• What is the commercial potential of your market category in a specific country?

• Which country should you launch in first?

• How should you roll out a global launch sequence?

• How can you predict the brand launch market share and sales potential?

• How much market share should you expect to have at launch versus your competition?

Pre-launch success factors

Some areas that have been identified as key to the success of a product launch:

• Understand the current market situation, including treatment, patient and script drivers, through effective market research and data analysis to prepare the hypothesis.

• Determine the product positioning, differentiation factors, key messages.

• Prepare an action plan from a micro-marketing view, including a detailing scenario and objection handling.

• Obtain promotional resources and allocate them aimed to maximize return.

• Utilize internal and global benchmarks on successful launches.

• Understand medical needs from the voices of customers.

 • Analyze patient attributes from clinical information on the target disease.

 • Analyze potential and risk by analyzing off-label use.

Early post-launch evaluation

Just as important as planning appropriately for a successful launch is evaluating your efforts. Did you achieve what you had hoped to? What mistakes can you learn from? What new developments do you need to take into consideration to continue to promote the drug and drive sales?

• Does your original pricing and reimbursement planning still hold up in the current environment? What amendments should be made?

• How can you predict the short-term success of your drug based upon its launch? How can you predict long-term brand potential?

• How can you predict the short-term market share of your drug based upon its launch? How can you predict long-term market share and sales potential?

• How, when and where should you continue to spend your budget across sales force and promotional activities for maximum market share impact?

• What factors are really influencing prescriber behavior when it comes to your product?

• Which messages are having the most impact on actual prescribing?

• Can you quantify the financial impact from each individual marketing program?

• Which elements of each program are having the most actual prescribing impact?

• What is the most effective mix of sales and promotional activities going forward for market share growth?

• How can you forecast brand performance based on investment assumptions and market dynamics?

• What are the rep quality differences across brand and companies?

• How can you optimize all relevant resources for your brand and portfolio across multiple activities and geographies?

• Have you done everything right? If not, what needs to change? How, and by how much?

Some areas that have been identified as key to the success of a product early post-launch are:

• Monitor market changes accurately and continuously.

• Verify hypothesis (treatment, patient and script drivers) prepared prior to launch.

• Evaluate effect of key message and sales activities.

• Determine point to change strategy from maximization to optimization (ROI).

• Gain customer trust and credibility (understand risk factors for prescription) to increase product loyalty.

• Prompt implementation of change of strategy.

While the pressure for launching new products is higher than it has ever been and marketers are tasked to create magic from thin air, new strategies and tactics are available to plan effectively and plot for profit. Sophisticated analytics can help companies answer key questions throughout each stage of pre-launch planning, ensuring the best strategies and most informed tactics.

Dr. Andree K. Bates, a regular contributor to eyeforpharma, is CEO of Eularis, which applies analytics to determine the sales impact of marketing programs.

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