Growth-stage biopharma · Commercial signals program
Six Times the Expected Patient Enrollments, and the Platform to Scale It
Once a biopharmaceutical company reaches a certain scale, getting more from its investments in data, analytics, and AI becomes a strategic decision. Next best action capabilities belong on that path to growth. They provide a significant return when done well. Getting the basics right from the start and bringing everyone along from idea to pilot to scale is what we are built for.
A growth-stage biopharma with three brands and a growing field force had reached that point. It had the question every commercial team asks. Where are the patients, and how should we engage their physicians? Claims data, media signals, and CRM activity each held part of the answer. Connecting them took manual effort. The idea of finding patients earlier and targeting outreach better led to several pilots with no shared plan.
The pilot we structured delivered six times the expected new enrollments. The CEO approved the capital request to scale it. The team selected a platform, and the board has asked to see more.
We came in through the IT product team and moved to commercial operations as the program took shape. The mandate had two parts. Prove the signals were worth acting on. Then make the case for the platform that would orchestrate them at scale.
The situation
The company had ambitious growth targets and needed every advantage. It had data, analysts, and platform partners. It did not have a program. Trigger rules lived with the analytics team. CRM delivery lived with a second team. Media and non-personal promotion lived with a third.
Each group needed something different. The field needed simple signals it could trust. Marketing wanted clarity on digital engagement. Leadership wanted results.
Every team worked at capacity. Commercial had a launch underway. IT ran the platforms. Data teams sourced data. Analytics teams built the models. The work between them had no owner.
What we did
We turned the pilots into one program. We organized workstreams, a steering committee, a stakeholder plan, a milestone tracker, and a risk register. A governance path put every assumption and decision on record. We designed the pilot for measurement: cohorts to track movement, triggers fired nationally, CRM delivery in one region, and the right field leader at the table from day one.
We built the business case. The pilot produced the numbers. Feedback from the field told the story. We shaped the case around those stories and qualified each one with data. Executive briefings gave leaders a summary, the shape of the patient funnel, a three-year roadmap, and the projections and resources needed to scale. With leadership aligned, the CEO simply approved the capital request over an email.
We ran the platform selection. The team collected and weighted its success criteria internally. We wrote the requirements and the request for proposals with sourcing. We ran the proposal reviews, the oral sessions, and the reference calls on the finalists. The team reached a clear decision. The company kept ownership of the strategy. The platform executes it.
What's running now
New enrollments from the pilot came in at six times the expectation, on a conservative count. More patients now actively manage their disease. For them it can mean fewer hospitalizations and a better quality of life.
The board praised the program and wants to see more. The teams doing the work kept the practices set up at the start. The program remains on track to raise enrollments further. The company accelerated plans to bring the capability to its other assets and to the medical and patient services business units.