The future of healthcare is evolving through transformative technologies, reinvention of traditional business models, and ecosystem partnerships, all aimed at creating a more collaborative and patient-centric approach to health. As the crucial link between PharmaCo headquarters and global markets, affiliates cannot afford to stand still. To be commercially fit for the future, today’s affiliates need to anticipate change and prepare accordingly by tailoring go-to-market models and their organizational setup, identifying their differentiating capabilities, reassessing their culture and ways of working, and considering how technology and AI can both enhance and facilitate change.
Challenges driving change for affiliates
Healthcare systems worldwide are grappling with the rise of chronic and rare diseases, increasing treatment and service costs, and broader macroeconomic pressures. Consequently, local markets are evolving through shifting health policies, changing stakeholder expectations, and the emergence of new delivery models. This has significantly heightened the challenges for pharmaceutical affiliates, altering how they engage in the market, meet stakeholder expectations, and manage profitability.
Emerging challenges for affiliates
| Stakeholder engagement |
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| Product portfolios |
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| Technology and data |
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| Financial pressure |
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Considerations for affiliates of the future
These emerging challenges influence how affiliates operate today and prepare for the future. In light of regular reviews of an affiliate’s strategy and operations, we have identified four critical building blocks that ensure the future readiness of affiliates.
PharmaCos must carefully consider each building block by answering key strategic questions on how to best position their affiliates in the current market environment and set them up for future success.
Addressing these questions can be challenging for affiliates. However, a fact-based portfolio analysis approach can help simplify this process by identifying the necessary capabilities for an affiliate’s portfolio and outlining optimal resourcing profiles.
An objective approach to prepare for the future - 'product archetypes'
Affiliates can streamline their operating models by categorizing their products using distinct archetypes. The maturity and nature of an affiliate’s portfolio may determine how to engage the market and organize teams. Innovative products or therapies in a new disease / therapeutic area commonly require increased engagement to effectively communicate their value in the market, while legacy products often need less effort to maintain sales. Affiliates can reallocate effort across their portfolio by clustering products into distinct archetypes, categorized by:
- Future brand potential: This considers factors such as revenue potential, profitability, growth, pricing pressures, and competition to assess the potential of a product
- Customer engagement: This evaluates the level of customer engagement required for specific products, whether it involves medical, commercial, or a combination of both resources
The outlined archetypes provide affiliates with guidance on deploying commercial, medical, and digital capabilities, which in turn inform product go-to-market models.
Specific actions for affiliates
Once affiliates have successfully clustered their product portfolio across archetypes and identified respective resource allocations, the four critical building blocks must be addressed to support these archetypes.
Starting with the first building block, go-to-market models and organizational setup, product archetypes are translated into tailored engagement models through analysis of product pipelines and existing therapeutic capabilities. This includes balancing customer-facing teams (such as commercial and medical teams) with enabling roles to ensure these teams have the necessary resources to compete effectively. The next step is designing an organizational setup that aligns functional teams with sales priorities, establishing clear roles, responsibilities, structures, and reporting lines.
The implications for capabilities, culture, ways of working, and technology should subsequently be addressed to best complement and enhance the new organizational setup. The primary focus is on empowering affiliates to equip their workforce to meet and surpass market demands, enhance internal collaboration for better outcomes, and achieve maximum operational efficiency:
- Differentiating capabilities: This involves identifying and organizing the critical capabilities that create added value for affiliates and their stakeholders. These capabilities should be aligned with product archetypes, and organizations must determine how to build, acquire, or recruit them
- Culture and ways of working: A culture of continuous learning and collaboration is crucial in dynamic customer markets. Affiliates should assess whether their current culture supports cross-functional integration, the adoption of agile methods, and the leadership necessary to drive change
- Technology and AI: Leveraging technology and AI can transform affiliate operations and provide a data-driven competitive advantage. Understanding which tools and systems drive productivity and enhance the employee experience is key to achieving operational excellence. See our “Re-inventing Pharma with artificial intelligence” report which explores how AI is transforming the sector
The time to act is now
As market and healthcare system challenges continue to evolve, PharmaCos cannot afford to let their affiliates fall behind. Ask yourself: Do your teams have the right go-to-market models? Are they using the right tools to drive productivity? How well do they adapt to their markets? Now is the time for PharmaCos to evaluate their affiliates and equip them for future success.
Tim Auret and Rahul Khatri also contributed to this report.
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