Strategy Consulting Why Your Advisory Board Shouldn’t Be Moderated by the Team Most Invested in the Answer You’ve spent months working on the asset. The clinical strategy has been debated. The data have been reviewed from every angle. The Read More » SiVan March 12, 2026
Project History VI: Asset Landscaping for Pharma BD and why your biotech website might be hindering your chances of being “spotted” When you read the Pharma news sites and analysis on LinkedIn about drug patent cliffs, you might think pharmaceutical companies are sitting Read More » Simon Vanstone June 26, 2025
Project History VII-IX: Why the Best Go/No-Go Research Starts by Trying to Kill the Project Intro Teams often fail not because of a lack of data, but because of research that confirms what they already believe. The Read More » Simon Vanstone October 16, 2025
Strategy Consulting Simon joins panel discussion Behind the Headlines Early this week, I joined Chris Spivey on PharmaTech.com’s Behind the Headlines to discuss several of the previous week’s significant life science Read More » Simon Vanstone June 5, 2025
Strategy Consulting ‘First mover’ isn’t always an advantage for new drugs ~1.5 years ago I was reading a Financial Times article (FT.com) on obesity drugs and their order to market when my critical Read More » Simon Vanstone May 30, 2025
Strategy Consulting What does GSK know that Novartis doesn’t? Looking back at R&D bets Following last week’s post on the slow activity in M&A in 2025 so far (Sivan-Consulting), we now have some activity picking up, Read More » Simon Vanstone May 22, 2025
Strategy Consulting A slow start to M&A in 2025, and it doesn’t look to be changing soon… It has been a bit of a writing hiatus as I have been in the middle of delivering a few short, intense Read More » Simon Vanstone May 15, 2025
Strategy Consulting Many pharma companies have zigged… but Teva is zagging. This post/article is worth a read for those interested in the evolution of Pharma Business models: Pharma Exec – The Teva Turnaround Read More » Simon Vanstone March 20, 2025
Strategy Consulting Top pharma’s R&D expenditure, M&A, and In-licensing activity 2012-2021 This follows last week’s post (Link) on the impact of M&A and licensing on FDA drug approvals of leading pharmaceutical companies, based Read More » Simon Vanstone March 13, 2025
Strategy Consulting Is internal R&D, M&A or licensing most impactful on the number of FDA drug approvals? I recently read an interesting paper from Prof. Alexander Schuhmacher et al. on the impact of M&A and licensing on FDA drug Read More » Simon Vanstone March 6, 2025
Strategy Consulting Project History IV – LOE Readiness Done Right 1. Introduction In this project history, I’ll talk about an example of a proactive company preparing for an event several years away, Read More » Simon Vanstone February 27, 2025
Strategy Consulting Benchmarking Infographic: How to analyse, report and use your findings If you have decided to do a benchmarking exercise and collected a load of data, including primary research, you’re now probably thinking, Read More » Simon Vanstone February 20, 2025
Recommendations Simon Says Read This Book: Storytelling with Data This week’s recommendation is a book I’m in the process of reading through a second time: Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Read More » Simon Vanstone February 11, 2025
Strategy Consulting Using the MoSCoW Method to organise what you will and won’t get during a consulting project Ever find yourself mid-way through a research consulting project and disagreeing on what can be delivered? It’s the start of the year Read More » Simon Vanstone January 16, 2025
Strategy Consulting Benchmarking Infographic: Why you might want to do it and how you can collect the data With the start of the new year, you may look at your company, business unit, or function and decide it is time Read More » Simon Vanstone January 9, 2025