A global leader in the pharmaceutical industry, with a keen focus on rare diseases, realized the importance of intensifying its market and competitive intelligence to maintain its top position in the niche area of rare disease treatments.
The company sought to develop a single source of truth of market intelligence for the entire organization. It decided to streamline and automate the gathering, categorization, and dissemination of pivotal data across several functions, including research, development, and market access.
More than just systematizing the process, the company’s aspiration was intelligence magnification — harnessing the power of technology to amplify human insight and decision-making across several core functions.
In an industry as dynamic as pharmaceuticals, staying ahead requires not only groundbreaking research but also an acute awareness of the competitive landscape. Following their initial consultations with Contify, the company outlined following business objectives for market intelligence:
The nuanced nature of the pharmaceutical industry, especially when dealing with rare diseases, presents its own set of unique challenges. For the company, these challenges were particularly pronounced:
Manual Effort Overload: Due to the scarcity of information on rare diseases, the manual trawling process to find relevant intelligence became excessively time-consuming and inefficient. The low data volume meant that each piece of information was akin to finding a needle in a haystack.
Disparate Information Sources: While databases provided a certain depth of information, they were just one piece of the larger puzzle. The company sought insights from a myriad of channels, including news, primary intelligence, reports, and social media.
The absence of a unified platform to consolidate these insights resulted in scattered intelligence, hampering holistic decision-making.
Need for a Centralized Intelligence Platform: Beyond just aggregating data, the company was in dire need of an integrated intelligence platform that could seamlessly blend diverse sources of intelligence.
The goal was to provide a 360 degree view of the competitive landscape, helping teams to decipher patterns, identify opportunities, and strategize responses in a coherent and timely manner.
Contify configured a comprehensive market and competitive intelligence platform tailored for the pharmaceutical company’s unique focus on rare diseases, by leveraging their proprietary technology and domain analysts.
To lay the foundation for precise and targeted information gathering, Contify initiated its approach by curating a specialized taxonomy tailored for the pharmaceutical company. This taxonomy was constructed around core indications, with a focus on rare diseases such as Alagille Syndrome, NASH/NAFLD, Angelman Syndrome, Acromegaly and C3 Glomerulopathy, to name a few.
Moreover, to gain a panoramic view of the market and ensure comprehensive intelligence, the taxonomy was enriched with key strategic topics. These ranged from business moves of competitors like funding, investments, expansions, financial results, and mergers, to more specific developments like clinical trials, regulatory updates, and patent disclosures.
By harnessing the power of the custom taxonomy, Newsfeeds ensured that the pharma company’s teams get the most relevant updates in a timely manner. Whether it was fresh scientific literature, a newly granted patent in the rare disease space, or executive changes within competitor companies, newsfeeds ensured an unwavering focus on the changing competitive landscape.
This allowed for a seamless flow of relevant news articles, opinion pieces, and industry updates directly aligned with the company’s strategic areas of interest, ensuring users always remained at the forefront of critical developments.
In addition to updates on the newsfeed, an automated email alert was dispatched to the designated user or team whenever a new piece of information surfaces anywhere on internet that matches the set parameters in the taxonomy. This ensured market awareness, enabling swift decision-making based on the most updated market intelligence.
To address the need for swift and pertinent dissemination of market and competitive intelligence, Contify curated newsletters for the company, meticulously segmented for optimal utility and relevance, with the following sections:
At the end of each section, a concise, digestible summary was provided. This ensured that even if the readers were pressed for time, they could quickly grasp the essence of the updates.
Each newsletter was encapsulated in a format that mirrored the company’s branding and visual design language, ensuring that the communication was consistent, professional, and familiar to the recipients.
Contify understood the nuances and unique requirements of each function within the company. Here’s a detailed breakdown of the customized dashboards tailored for the research, development, and market access teams:
Through these meticulously crafted dashboards, Contify ensured that each team was equipped with the most relevant, up-to-date, and actionable intelligence, perfectly aligned with their specific goals and responsibilities.
Recognizing the modern workspace’s shift to collaborative platforms, Contify seamlessly integrated its solution with Microsoft Teams. This allowed users to directly send updates, primary intelligence, and other pertinent information to MS Teams channels, further streamlining the communication process and ensuring that insights are readily accessible to all team members.
Prior to Contify’s solution, the company’s grasp of the rare disease competitive landscape was scattered across different functions and teams of the company. By streamlining the process of gathering, categorizing, and disseminating intelligence, Contify has empowered the pharmaceutical leader to identify gaps in the market and be better positioned to seize emerging opportunities before competitors.
This enhanced understanding has directly led to strategic moves like accelerated R&D initiatives, proactive collaborations, and preemptive product launches, solidifying the company’s dominant position in the rare disease segment.
Research and development, the core driver in pharma, relies heavily on up-to-the-minute insights. With Contify’s curated newsfeeds and dashboards, the company’s research team received a goldmine of timely and pertinent updates.
This has led to an accelerated pace in the development of novel treatments, informed adjustments in ongoing clinical trials based on timely competitor and industry movements, and a substantial reduction in potential redundant research efforts.
Ultimately, this means faster time-to-market for breakthrough treatments, boosting the company’s reputation and potentially saving lives.
Empowered with a granular view of market dynamics, including competitor maneuvers and stakeholder shifts, the global commercial team has been able to chart out more informed, agile, and strategic paths.
By anticipating market shifts and understanding stakeholder sentiments in real-time, the company has been able to fine-tune its marketing, sales, and outreach efforts.
This, combined with insights from the regulatory environment, has ensured that market access strategies are both compliant and competitive, leading to expanded market shares in key territories and fortified relations with key stakeholders, especially in the realm of rare diseases.
“Before our collaboration, we grappled with information silos and the overwhelming manual task of deciphering relevant insights from the noise. Today, thanks to Contify’s tailored intelligence platform, we have managed to leapfrog our competition in the rare disease sector. The level of detail, from the curated newsfeeds to the meticulously segmented dashboards, truly resonates with our core business objectives. I commend Contify for their commitment to excellence and for playing a pivotal role in reinforcing our leadership position.”
– Director, Market Insights