Commercial Strategy and Business Development

We engage in supporting our clients identify, filter and evaluate in-licensing / out-licensing opportunities to drive their commercial business development strategies and global expansion plans. We identify, screen, evaluate and engage with prospective licensing and development partners. We develop an understanding of the commercial potential of our clients products to drive focused sales / business development efforts. In addition to recommending potential licensing partners, we provide assistance in developing optimal deal structures with suitable partners, taking into consideration R&D / other costs, payback time, upfront / milestone and royalty payments, and facilitate discussions to help our clients grow and capitalize on these opportunities.

Case Study: Novel Technology

Project Background

Client

  • The client is a specialty drug delivery firm based in the US. It has several upcoming innovative devices which allow the delivery of a variety of drugs / therapeutic molecules in various doses across different patient segments.
  • It has already successfully completed pilot stage testing of its technology. The firm had recently undergone a corporate strategy overhauling and, under its global expansion plans, planned to introduce its devices in new markets.
  • As a part of its revised strategy, the client wanted to identify, screen, evaluate and engage with prospective licensing and development partners.

Objective

  • To define 5-6 important parameters for shortlisting molecules. Among others, these parameters were based on the current route of administration, patent expiry, API availability, dosage amount and dosage frequency.
  • To assess leading pharmaceutical drugs / vaccines across the defined parameters and prioritize the reviewed candidates across different tiers as per the relative ranking set against the above parameters.
  • Estimate the likely sales potential driven by target customer base, uptake rate and expected pricing.
  • Build a predictive model to determine potential deal structures with suitable partners taking into consideration the R&D / other cost, payback time, upfront / milestone and royalty payments.

Project Approach

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Project Insights

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Project Outcome

Deliverable

  • A comprehensive excel database of data captured / assessed for over 200 drug / vaccine candidates covering substantial information such as patent expiry, API availability, route of administration etc.
  • A recommended list of 25 shortlisted candidates which were more suited to the client’s delivery system.
  • ADetailed business plans for each of the shortlisted candidates, highlighting the competitive landscape (both marketed / pipeline), existing challenges, benefits of a novel delivery system and an overall opportunity analysis highlighting likely deal structures / value.

Outcome

  • Greater understanding within the client’s leadership team on the commercial potential of its novel delivery systems, with specific targets, to drive focused sales / business development efforts.
  • The deal structure model emerged as a credible third party opinion to internal deal valuation models. The ability to flex certain parameters to do a multi-variate sensitivity analysis offered greater control to the management during negotiations, enabling them to get a fair deal value
  • The findings and suggestions were used ‘as-is’ by the CEO in his recommendations to the Corporate Advisory Board. Roots Analysis was retained to further develop specific opportunities and assist in the execution of the Board’s plans.