Creating the product/market strategy for a novel Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma treatment in the face of many barriers
Problem context
Our biotech client was developing an innovative radio pharmaceutical for Non Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. However, it was in the context of failure of the previous drugs in the same class. Our task was to discover the barriers to the class, potential drivers, and using that as a basis to create the commercial strategy.
Our approach
We developed the strategy by doing about 100 face-face depth interviews with oncologists and nuclear medicine specialists over a period of two years, and in four stages. The discussion included many different exercises, e.g., trade-off exercises, testing patient profiles, projective techniques. This allowed us to really understand how physicians think.
We ran many workshops with the client related to bringing insights to life, brainstorming messages and ideas, and change behaviour.
Insights and Impact
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Whilst our starting hypothesis was that the previous class was a complete failure and that a new class had to be created, we discovered that patients loved the earlier therapy and there were advocates amongst physicians who needed to be identified and cultivated. Anchoring it to the class was not only an authentic strategy, it allowed us to communicate the distinctive benefits of the drug well.
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We identified three priority segments for the client which we embedded in the entire organization including board members and the clinical team. We developed simple guides that allowed the employees to classify an oncologist in a segment based on a short conversation. The segmentation formed the basis of the client’s entire strategy.
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The existing belief for 3rd line treatments was that physicians just improvised – even physicians played that back. However, we discovered a hidden pattern when we matched physician segments to specific patient profiles. This insight helped us identify the “sweet spot” for positioning our client’s treatment in terms of target physician segment, patient profile, and unmet need
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There were many hurdles in the current referral and administration pathway because it was a radiopharmaceutical. We identified ways to improve the process by testing new pathways.
What we learned
This case illustrated the power of iterative qualitative research in a market with a lot of activities. In most oncology categories, there are many therapies in development always, and how they are perceived can change dramatically based on the most recent data. This has huge implications on the competitive positioning of the client’s therapy.
The Insight Dojo team have consistently demonstrated the ability to both understand and process complex medical science and to listen actively to the voice of customers. They handled deep scientific conversations with our internal R&D colleagues and moderated a few hundred sessions with a diverse set of external stakeholders, including key experts from primary academic schools in the US (including Weill Cornell, Memorial Sloan Kettering, Harvard) and Europe, as well as payers, patients and industry experts. Insight Dojo’s impact has gone beyond the pure commercial planning space, as the insights they generated and shared with the management team have deeply influenced the company’s clinical development strategy and plans.