Primary Intelligence
Everything we deliver is rooted in primary intelligence, collected in accord with rigorous compliance procedures and industry best practice
Primary intelligence means speaking directly with key opinion leaders, physician-investigators, and scientists to gain their firsthand perspectives. Doing this routinely ensures that we never miss the forest for the trees. At the same time that we triangulate across all available public data sources to uncover emerging trends, we are constantly pressure-testing our assumptions through primary market research.
From these discussions, we gain insight such as which data physicians would need to see to change the way they treat patients, and which recent data announcements they view to be the most clinically meaningful. These conversations keep us focused on what physicians’ view to be the greatest unmet patient need, and ensure that we have all potentially practice-changing therapies in development on our radar.
We collect our primary intel in accord with industry best practices, including the Sunshine Act and the SCIP CI Code of Ethics. Interviewees are reminded at the outset to not discuss or disclose any material, non-public information, and to not disclose confidential or proprietary information, such as data from an ongoing trial.
CASE STUDY
A PRESSURE-TESTED STARTING POINT FOR BRAND DEVELOPMENT
NEED:
A client gearing up to launch a new therapy needed to define the product’s expected market potential and establish clear guidance for big-budget, brand-building activities.
ACTION:
First, BTH summarized the treatment paradigm and competitive landscape by distilling all available information down to what is, and what is likely to be, clinically meaningful for the target patient population of the new therapy. Sources for this exercise included clinical guidelines, trial databases, company presentations, conference proceedings, social media and SEC filings.
Next, as a neutral party, we conducted primary research with oncologists in key geographies. Through these qualitative, casual 1:1 discussions, we gained primary stakeholder perspectives on topics such as their expectation for this and other key emerging therapies in the field, why the benefit of each is (or isn’t) believable, presumed drivers and barriers to use and their strategy for patient selection.
Key takeaways from this exercise included identification of relevant emerging trends, and snapshots of competitor product profiles and competitive positioning. We then assigned probabilities of technical and regulatory success to each, and established estimates for launch dates and market penetration. In addition, we articulated views of several regulatory and pricing analogs, as reference points.
RESULT:
In 6 weeks from kick-off to delivery, BTH produced a pressure-tested preliminary report on product positioning that the client then used to kickstart large-scale brand-building projects with confidence and clarity. This enabled the client to streamline efforts in developing launch materials, including market research stimuli for brand concepts.
In addition, we provided the client with key pre-launch demand forecast inputs such as market size, anticipated penetration at launch and high-level modeling of competition over time. This enabled the client to build a credible forecast, which could be leveraged to make data-driven decisions, facilitate more effective resource planning and engage in more productive BD
