Total market

Background and objectives

The client was planning to launch a fixed dose combination product for asthma. They wanted to create a scenario planning and forecasting tool to determine the potential share of gain/loss of products against the putative profile at the time of the launch. This was in order to assist in defining a minimum commercially acceptable profile to provide simulations of the relevant therapeutic area markets post launch.

Approach

We undertook a quantitative market survey (n=780) using discrete choice modelling to develop a utility model of the market, and then fused perception data to the utility model to create 'a more complete' picture of the actual marketplace. This was re-calibrated using IMS data. This model produced peak shares at 100% awareness level among GPs, allergist chest physicians and pulmonologists.

Results delivered

The deliverables included a PowerPoint slide report and a custom written programme with an Excel front end and an Access based database in the backend. The front end had two models running in the background:

• Utility and perception model driven by attributes and claims
• A Bass Diffusion-based model with epidemiology and patient scripts from IMS

he model covered the whole market with more than 400 products, and was totally interactive. It had the ability to forecast the market size of the different classes of treatments, such as ICSs, LABAs, SABAs and the leukotriene antagonists market, over a period of 10 years, as well as the sales volume and the sales revenue of the product in the top six markets. This offered the ability to change the order of launch, price points, discounts and to pull out any product from the market.

Product lifecycle management - Optimising the current and future ophthalmology franchise with a portfolio strategy in the face of impending generics

Background and objectives

The client, a top 10 pharmaceutical company, engaged us to undertake a strategy evaluation and formulation project taking into account pending generic threats facing ophthalmology franchises.

The key challenges facing our client were as follows:

• The optimal strategies for maximising short-term sales of the existing products may not be consistent with the long-term objectives of the portfolio.
• As market leading products in the X market, Z and Y will be important reference products for new products in development. This suggested that it is important to maintain the price of the brands as far as possible.
• However, it was also important to maintain a strong presence in the ophthalmology market as a platform for the new products. This necessitated targeted price reductions to maintain market share.
• In most markets, loss of patent is expected to occur at a similar time to the launch of the first new product. In some cases the exact timing of launch (following reimbursement negotiations where needed) relative to generic entry may be critical.
• The issue was more pressing in two European markets where generic entry could be significantly earlier than the launch of the new product.
• Price reductions in these two European markets in response to generic entry, may be optimal for those markets, but may have a knock-on effect through referencing pricing or parallel trade in other EU countries with longer patent life.
• In the US the client faced a particular challenge with the loss of patent of a competitor product in a different class but of a direct competitor. The possible implications for our client's product X and Y's volume, and to assess measures taken by ABC needed to be understood and strategies required to deal with these.

Approach

This was a large project lasting eight months with multiple phases, advance analytics, analogue modelling, competitive intelligence on generic companies, quantitative market research to measure brand equity, payer research to develop a pricing strategy for the follow-on product, and finally modelling of various strategies and tactics at country level as well as global ROI analysis.

• Intelligence about likely generics (Stages 1A, 1B 1C and 1D)
• Impact of generics on brand price and share based on country systems analysis and analogues (Stages 1C, 1D)
• Assessment of the pricing opportunity for new products (2C)
• Payer research: this tested the likely response from physicians in an environment where generic X and Y were available (2A).
• Primary intelligence: this tested the likely response from generic manufacturers; their interest and capabilities to manufacture and distribute copies or APIs of our client's product.
• Primary quantitative research: to provide the team with robust quantitative numbers for forecast modelling of revenue, and produce a market share simulations model for current products, and to measure brand equity of X and Y brands with ophthalmologists.

Results delivered

There were outputs from each activity, such as CI, which highlighted "intense" generic competition and MR "low" brand equity.

We delivered at each milestone, finally delivering global and regional strategic options of viable strategies, looking at all options, such as:

• Manufacturing
• Generics launches
• Reformulations
• Bridging
• Value enhancement

We also undertook a roadshow workshop for each of six markets and provided a template and guidance to co-ordinate strategies and tactics. All options were backed up by financial models.