Executives at pharmaceutical and life sciences companies report that obtaining a sufficient budget for new products is one of the top challenges facing their new product teams, according to a study from Cutting Edge Information.
In the study, "Pharmaceutical New Product Planning: Building the Framework for Brand Commercialization," the researcher found that executives rank obtaining sufficient budgets at 3.69 out of 5, with 5 being extremely challenging, said a recent news release announcing the report.
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With competition and tighter payer requirements, life science companies start shaping the commercial profiles of their developing brands as early as possible. Throughout brand development, the assessments and forecasting of new product planning groups “… influence critical go/no-go decisions at every step,” the report noted. New product planning teams support clinical and R&D groups while also playing important roles in business development.
But new product planning teams often face hurdles acquiring the necessary funds for their commercial activities, especially when beginning work early in a product's development. Whether this funding comes from a dedicated budget or from other departments varies among surveyed companies, the release said.
The researcher concluded that 69 percent of surveyed teams reported receiving a dedicated budget. Nearly one quarter, or 23 percent, of these teams said that they received funds from other groups in addition to their dedicated budgets. Eight percent of surveyed companies do not have a dedicated new product planning budget.
“New product development teams often have to manage funds from other groups to complete their tasks,” said David Richardson, research manager at Cutting Edge Information, in the release. “The percentages of groups with dedicated new product planning budgets and those receiving additional contributions are steady across large, mid-sized and small companies.”
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The study aims to help pharmaceutical companies increase planning resources to support brand responsibilities as developing products move closer to launch and promote more communications with clinical teams to insert commercially-focused data collection into clinical trials of the brands they support, the release said.
Commercially-focused data, usually related to patient outcomes, help shape products’ final commercial profiles, the report said. New product planning teams are pushing for increased influence over a product’s early clinical development.
“Although teams may face resistance from R&D, implementing commercial factors into early clinical trials is critical,” the report said. “Laying the groundwork for the commercial future of compounds proves beneficial, especially as companies begin applying for reimbursement.”
Questions related to health economics and outcomes research by the new product planning team benefit the company in later discussions with payers once brands reach market.
However, new product planning teams face obstacles in getting more data collection into trials, including R&D’s tight timelines and their focus on traditional regulatory-facing trial endpoints and data collection.
One company highlighted in the report got around such obstacles by instituting continuous feedback from new product planners to clinical teams in order to identify and insert additional data collection into trials when possible.
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