Pharmaceutical New Product Planning: Structure and Activities to Drive Growth and Profitability

Best Practices, LLC used both field surveys and interviews to complete this study. In all, 27 New Product Planning leaders at 25 different companies across the globe contributed data. In-depth interviews were conducted with leaders from 13 of the participating companies.

NOTE: The data in this research are segmented into three parts: Global NPP Function for Large Pharma, Global NPP Function for Small Pharma and Regional NPP Function for Large Pharma.

Study Snapshot

New products are the lifeblood of any biopharma company and organizations are increasingly under pressure to deliver effective products in shorter time frames. As development pressures have grown, leading companies have turned to the New Product Planning function to seed the development process with actionable insights across all the phases of product commercialization.
This pharmaceutical-focused study sheds light on which organizational structures create the most effective New Product Planning groups. The study also determines which development activities NPP is involved with, what time in the development process the activities are undertaken and why.

With interviews from executives at 13 top companies, extensive survey data and insights drawn from 25 surveyed companies, this report provides executives, directors, and managers at pharmaceutical companies with actionable insights that will improve the operations of their NPP groups and strengthen the development process of their organization.

Topics covered in this study include:

• NPP group structures, roles and responsibilities
• Interactions and optimal working relationships between Regional and Global NPP groups
• Examining the full set of activities NPP groups perform, their timing, intended outcomes, and value for the organization
• The future of the NPP function

• Involving NPP early in the development process speeds decision-making and allows low-value projects to be pruned.
• NPP needs to be part of core team (with R&D, Clinical, etc) that shapes product development.
  
  Function
• NPP groups should follow a fairly standard set of procedures to evaluate the commercial viability of drugs in development. Variations occur based on the particular characteristics of a drug or therapeutic program
  
  Market Planning Activities
  Begin development of Target Product Profile (TPP) as early as possible in Pre-Clinical in order to:
• Assess how mechanism of action may be different or better than existing options
• Establish a “threshold of success” that must be met in order to have a viable product (or to kill project)
• Adjust as other products appear or as data changes
• Focus in Phases 1 and 2 on the level of appropriate dosing and delivery method
• Provide a foundation for effective positioning, publications, messaging, etc. later (Phase 3)