An upbeat message for every brand manager launching a biotech and biopharma brand.

Are you preparing to launch or market a biotech brand in the near future? I won’t lie to you. It’s gonna get a little bumpy.

Here are some of the obstacles you’ll face:

1. The toughest regulatory environment in the last, um, ever

2. The least access to doctors in history

3. The dizzying fractionation of your audience’s communication choices

4. A hostile public environment, with the consumers and press wanting to vilify you at every turn

5. A recession climate and all that comes with it (Let’s be honest, it’s still in the air, no matter what the numbers say.)

6. Healthcare reform that is nebulous and hard to grasp

7. A lack of official guidance where it’s needed most, in the burgeoning frontier of social media (thanks, FDA)

8. Stockholders who are about out of patience

9. Commercialization that becomes a Herculean task when you’re faced with skeleton marketing teams

So, where’s the chicken soup part, you ask?

The good news is that the struggle can still be worth it.

You are building a company with lasting value. You are creating a brand that will make a difference in the lives of patients who are looking for solutions for their illnesses.

The metaphorical chicken soup to nourish your soul, in light of the many daunting obstacles, is that if you have succeeded in making a difference, patients and professionals will be more than willing to share the news organically—which, in turn, will make your job a little easier.

Though the traditional metrics of brand success worked to define your worth in the older, more comfortable environment for biotech and pharma companies, you are now able to widen your definition of success, focusing on a whole new metric that puts a real value on what you’ve created with your brand.

You are not bound by the typical big pharma layers of bureaucratic management that ultimately stifle ideas and dreams and innovation. You are part of the future—of the new, stripped-down pharmaceutical industry that is emerging; of a movement that is going to save the existing industry from toppling from its own megapharma weight.

You can now revel in a creative freedom that cubicle dwellers in big pharma companies can only dream of. You are the last bastion of creative thought and bold deeds left in the pharma world. You are the biopharma brand champion.

And we thank you for doing what you do. It matters to us, to your peers, to the patients who need your unique brand, and to the world.

Nice job.