1. Introduction
In this project history, I’ll talk about an example of a proactive company preparing for an event several years away, commissioning a project to understand the external environment, informing the team, and preparing for a broader class of competition.
This project history is going to include a few topics that can be helpful for anyone conducting similar work:
- When to use benchmarking as part of a larger project
- When to use hypotheses and when to use questions to fuel your research
- Conducting a landscaping project early enough to implement findings
2. Project background and kickoff
The client had a successful branded product with multiple years of exclusivity and a portfolio and pipeline of related products. They knew they would face strong generic (Gx) and biosimilar (Bx) competition in the future, but as a team, they had limited direct experience competing with or working in either space.
As the lead client was in the corporate strategy team, they wanted more than a list of competitors, and when they would launch, they needed a comprehensive understanding of how Gx/Bx companies operate and compete. This understanding would help them prepare several years before entry, with time to incorporate findings into their yearly strategy cycles and be able to distill actions and tactics into brand teams/individual functions to understand this new type of competitor.
As has often been the case on projects over the last few years, I was part of a small team comprising different organizations, including another independent consultant and a professional services team. We had aggressive timelines and many research topics to cover ahead of the client’s internal leadership meetings, so it was critical to organize quickly.
The project itself was structured in three phases. I led an initial desk research phase to scope a wider selection of Gx/Bx companies and then picked 5 examples for detailed research. These examples were selected to represent several similar companies and give archetypes of different types of companies (e.g., innovative company with Bx, Indian-based Gx manufacturer)
The desk research started immediately (before the contracts were signed) and fed into a first wave of primary interviews. These were essential to gaining information beyond the public domain and supplementing our understanding of company archetypes and how they operate. Once the first phase was complete and the second phase was underway, the final phase was to help develop a bigger-picture view of the therapy area in which the products were launched by addressing questions on epidemiology, lifestyle and environmental factors, and policy/regulation.
3. Hypothesis vs Question
A key factor in quickly completing the project was the client providing a thorough set of hypotheses for us to test.
I don’t want to be too pedantic or climb too high onto my soapbox, but hypothesis and hypotheses are sometimes misused in the business world, and we must use the word correctly.
Sometimes, people say they have or will create hypotheses, but really, they have a set of questions. I’m not here to say a hypothesis is better than a question (aside from sounding fancier), but instead, define both and explore when and how they can be used in this kind of research.
A hypothesis is “an idea or explanation for something that is based on known facts, but has not yet been proved,” while a question is “a sentence or phrase used to find out information” (Cambridge Dictionary).
Hypotheses should be used where some team members have strong knowledge of an area based on non-codified or public expertise or experience. Ideally, they should be able to write a good number (5-10) close to the expected truth. Hypotheses can also be helpful in testing concepts that could be true for specific companies, situations, or products but not all in a group. One of the drawbacks is that it often takes more time to develop hypotheses as they aren’t intuitive to write without a surface level of knowledge quickly.
Questions are a great place to start when the topic is new or if a topic or area needs to be searched quickly and there isn’t time to discuss and develop hypotheses. In addition, they can be helpful where it may be “politically” challenging to create hypotheses (due to differing internal opinions). If the research is being done by an external party, it can then be easier them to address the questions and present an “independent” response to clear up the internal differences.
Both secondary and primary research approaches can be used in testing hypotheses. It is subject-specific for how well you can confirm or disprove a hypothesis with secondary and how much primary is needed to address the gaps. Specific topics around products and disease areas can be straightforward with secondary, whereas more complex and less codified subjects like operating models and business plans require primary research.
This project illustrated the efficiency of a hypothesis-driven approach. Instead of spending valuable time gathering broad, unfocused data, we used secondary research to confirm or disprove 60% of the hypotheses upfront. For the remaining 40%, we used primary research to fill in the gaps—focusing on the tough-to-answer points secondary data couldn’t provide and triangulating from multiple experts. This method allowed us to move beyond simple fact-finding and generate a nuanced understanding across different geographies, company models, and product types.
4. Benchmarking in practice
In principle, the client didn’t request benchmarking but wanted to create “standard” competitor profiles for the Gx/Bx companies to educate their stakeholders and act as a reference. Given that the information requested included easily comparable quantitative values (Revenue, portfolio size, number of employees), we decided to compare and report on the companies based on these benchmarks and create the profiles.
Pre-project, there was somewhat of an assumed homogeneity amongst the Gx/Bx companies. Still, even with a detailed look at secondary data, it was possible to see big differences in various leading and lagging metrics, the way they were organized, and how they planned or hoped to evolve in the future.
No two companies we reviewed looked the same when we compared their portfolio and pipeline over time. Some had started selling Bx in major markets and were trying to exit, others were trying to enter with Bx into major markets. Some had divested from innovative medicine companies to focus on Gx several years ago and, with the change of leadership, were trying to get back into innovative medicine through acquisitions.
We managed to visualize this on a single timeline slide with each company displaying when it had Gx, Bx, or innovative medicines in its portfolio alongside changes, giving a powerful image to see the variability in these companies.
This combined with an analysis of recent senior hires and their background (e.g. from Biotech, pharma or Gx/Bx) gave us a good framework to how these companies might evolve and compete with the client.
The client didn’t want to include their data, but one of the companies selling Bx was primarily focused on innovative medicines, with approximately the same revenue and numbers of employees as the client, and had a similar-sized portfolio in a group of related TAs, which gave a good indicator/comparator, which we flagged.
5. Primary research
The primary research was a critical part of the project as Gx/Bx companies are often less forthcoming on details of plans and actions, especially their pipeline than big pharma/biotechs. We covered a large number of topics, including launch sequencing, how they differentiate and compete for tenders, whether they brand products and how it varies by geography, how sales forces are organized, and the way supply chains are set up. We spoke with current and former senior executives from generic companies with global and specific regional experiences to address these.
Primary research on these topics can be very challenging when getting specifics for a certain company or brand. But, as we were looking for more of a general overview, respondents were open, with many individuals discussing their experiences across multiple companies or regions across their careers.
Although we wanted an overview, we needed to get specific details from an industry point of view and didn’t want vague responses. This was one of the instances of connecting with individuals as experts in the field, playing to their ego in some cases, rather than as an employee at company X or Y paid off. Taking a question like “Can you tell me how generics companies decide which products to replicate?”, to “Based on your wealth of experience at multiple companies, you must have a clear idea of what works when deciding which generic products to launch” would get a detailed answer covering a general approach, differences if they existed from the companies they worked at, and how it had or would change over time.
6. Analysis and reporting: Making sure the findings are helpful now and over the coming years
After the initial batch of ~20 interviews, we had a voluminous amount of findings answering the client’s questions, and many they hadn’t asked but we felt would be helpful for them going forward.
Given that this was conducted as an external landscape of the space, with the specific request not to include commentary on what the client should or shouldn’t do, we analyzed the findings with a narrative and observational approach to brief on how the Gx/Bx companies operate and compete.
We knew certain sections would be immediately helpful for the senior leaders in the client organization to learn from, and other findings might be valuable for specific functions or teams as products neared LOE.
As such, we structured the deck around answering the most important questions in a large summary section(~50 slides), including our confirmation or, in a few cases, disagreement (on technical points) with the hypotheses and benchmarking. For the main body of the deck, we took the remaining topics and built detailed sections for each, with their summaries and which functions they would be helpful for.
The next steps and recommendations stayed away from specifics on how the client should compete but instead highlighted future detailed research that could be done on particular topics, including regional-specific Gx/Bx research, and also looked at other originators and their LOE defense strategies.
7. Project Completion
Our team delivered the report summary, walked through key findings, and recorded an overview for a wider audience ahead of the client’s internal strategy meetings. With that, our work was—at least officially—done, aside from being on hand for follow-up questions.
Now, you might think this is the point where we roll up our sleeves and dive into strategy, execution plans, and competitor response tactics. And in many cases, that’s exactly what happens. But sometimes, clients prefer to take the findings, close the door, and work through the implications themselves.
This isn’t uncommon, and as consultants, part of the job is recognizing when a client wants deep ongoing support versus when they want a well-informed handoff. In this case, we respected their approach and made ourselves available for future check-ins—just in case they decided they wanted to bring us back into the conversation.
8. Wrap Up
This gives a good example of what I would categorize as a “LandscapingPLUS” project. We’re not just looking at a single disease space and the companies but an intense review of everything around the client’s business.
If this is something you think would be helpful for your business, get in touch, and we could discuss how.