Video: The future is Boundless

[00:00]
Francesco Steve thanks for coming in today appreciate you making the journey, we’re going to talk about something that’s very fundamental to the medical marketing community and that is what happens when you’ve got a new product whether it’s a drug or a molecule or a piece of equipment or a wearable or anything and your you need to start to bring it to Market because you need to start to realize some cash flow for those product and yet. It’s not quite there, so the money is not pouring in you’re dealing with like something that you absolutely have to have versus you know I guess you could call it like constrained resources right, so it’s a tough spot to be in you guys are specialists and helping people deal with this.

[00:52]
Steve I have to think that you’re sitting on top of a pile of analytical data. How do you use that? How do you put that to work to help people start making this transition so Steve you’re right? I mean it is a critical variable for any organization in order to optimize a products labeling with FDA give it the greatest opportunity to differentiate within space the earlier of the analytics are overlaid at a market level. I stress that market level because a lot of organizations will do Brand level analysis at the very beginning obvious reasons their brand. They have ownership of it and ultimately they want to Leverage as much information as possible. We always encourage the client to look broadly at the market level that takes into consideration all elements associated with promotional activities of all the brands within a therapeutic area.

[01:52]
Under those circumstances what we’re really driving at and really the essence of what marketing is all about satisfying target audience unmet needs, but the precursor to that is to obviously understand. What do they want? What are the unmet needs? So it sounds very obvious but under a lot of circumstances with industry elements that we get involved with and it doesn’t matter if it’s startup or top 10 Pharma group the essence of really understanding what drives preference at a target audience level and it could be doctor could be patient could be both under a lot of different circumstances. We really want to understand. What does the doctor want out of the drug that’s coming to market that hasn’t been fulfilled in his clinical armamentarium.

[02:48]
In order to treat the appropriate patient within therapeutic area sounds simple sounds simple you know we we have developed a hybrid dynamic in my opinion that over the last 25 to 30 years of industry experience that Francesco and I both have we’ve started on the client side it evolved to agency Consulting kind of work, but the bottom line is that the hybrid dynamic that I think we’ve uncovered and we now in my opinion have almost perfected is an offering to the client allows the client to spend some money. We’re not talking about breaking the bank under these circumstances thus the application no matter if it’s a small company or really really big company. We’re not talking about breaking the bank one way or the other.

[03:42]
But the analytics and it’s a quantitative form of market Analytics that we’ve created with other partners that we have in the industry to give us that read of if I have to prioritize what somebody is telling a doctor top the bottom let’s say that there’s 200 clinical claims in a therapeutic area. I should be able to go to an analytic spreadsheet and understand. What’s the most important all the way down to what’s the least important when it’s all said and done Francesco does this hold true for a company regardless of size like big to small it truly does to even what’s interesting about what you had alluded to that Steve earlier mentioned of the simplicity of it right the the beauty of it is the Simplicity of it the complex nature of it is what’s behind the envelope of it’s not as simple as it sounds what we’ve also learned and I’ll leverage what Steve mentioned you know.

[04:39]
25 30 plus years of experience understanding the element that regardless of a company size there are oftentimes those transition points or those hand-off points where these things are falling into the ether falling into the void and what we have been doing now at Boundless and this is why I’m really excited about introducing commercial Consulting and Steve really leading that charge for us. Is it brings in a companion service arm to the broader services within balanced life sciences to engage these clients earlier in development, so this is sort of a sub practice. You know you guys call it bondless commercial Consulting that’s correct exactly it’s it’s a if you think of it in the sort of upstream mentality. It’s the ability to actually partner with clients earlier in the development process in earlier. Is always better right especially when you’re talking about these simplistic type discussions the sooner these happened the better is Steve just mentioned. You know you look at let’s say a complex therapeutic category.

[05:39]
CNS field for example where there could be 100 to 200 different sort of items that a client needs to really evaluate and understand. What are the appreciable metrics here that matter to not only the decision-making on the physician side but to the patient and even the payer and if there is not a way early on to understand the prioritization of those the hierarchy of those how a product does or doesn’t attach to it in terms of its TPP or it’s it’s profile itself. That’s going to have downstream implications to research development messaging content once you ultimately get into your core agency services. You know you could be tail leading the dog at that point so the application of the commercial Consulting earlier on is to help mitigate that to infuse it as Steve said analytically driven, but also ultimately insight driven, so that when those hand-offs occur or when that bridge occurs between the clinical Development Team and the commercial team they’re all on the same.

[06:39]
Path right we’ve lived a basketball our old lives and won’t say one and where but we’ve lived experiences on the commercial side where we get handed something from you know the clinical development side and it’s like all right. Good luck and you’re going what am I going to do with this? So so that sounds like it’s one of the pitfalls right. I said I was kind of joking when I said it sounds simple but but you know we all know and anyone listening to this knows that it’s it’s not simple. What are some of the pitfalls. I mean if you guys got this experience in your running a Consulting group. Clearly. You’ve got a checklist of stuff like let’s avoid these issues. Let’s talk about a few of them. I’ll start with a couple and then Steve please fill in sure number one. Is is the timing right the idea that these these type decisions and these type analyses should be done early on in the clinical development process and/or even prior to completing clinical study designs. That’s the first pitfall oftentimes groups wait until they’re you know well in the

[07:38]
Three to even begin to have these conversations, so that’s number one number two is that idea of even if there is not a fully established commercial team in place getting the input from someone with a commercial lens in that early stage to at least provide some insight as to market Dynamics are going to be looking for this or seeking this you guys should be considering these things those are two of the biggest pitfalls, but I know there are others yeah. You know there are certainly discipline silo Dynamics that occur very early in product development. I.e. If I’m in early phase two of Clinical development under a lot of circumstances medical affairs or clinical development phelocity though. It’s theirs and they need to hold on to it. These are clinical end points that were pursuing I think we always encourage a more synergistic integration right across the disciplines so that we have the appropriate overlap of market Analytics

[08:38]
We don’t want to lose a science. I mean, that’s what it’s all about when it’s all said and done, but we just want to overlay the analytics to say understand the science let’s quantify it market level because remember Steve when it’s all set and done. This is about optimally launching a brand creating a brand performance of capturing dominant market share generating profitability for the organization so the sooner those teams start that integration sequence and it’s early as possible in clinical development the better that brand actually is through its entire life cycle. Well. It sounds almost it sounds I mean it’s highly intuitive that it makes sense that it’s like it can’t just be like check out this bitch and molecule that I got right you can’t just be like that yep, so you know it sounds highly intuitive that of course you would start talking early, but we all know in organizations bigger or the bigger the organization the more likely it is to be this way.

[09:38]
That that there isn’t like an optimal amount of communication as part of your consultancy. What do you tell a client about like listen here’s how you guys here’s all the different parts of the team can start working together sooner.

[09:55]
Yeah, I’ll jump into initially and I know Steve there’s other things here to consider as well. It goes back to one of the earlier points you also mentioned Steve about where is that company at its life cycle and the reason why I bring it back to that point is you just made an interesting point right bigger organizations tend to have resources that small organizations. Don’t have bigger organizations. You would think intuitively to use your word would go in that direction but oftentimes what we’ve seen and what we experienced is the bigger organizations or the ones that have more of the true siloed mentality so with those type clients and potential partners. It’s a difference of what we’re trying to communicate to them is breaking down the walls. It’s more about cross collaboration and communication flip that to a startup in emerging company a smaller group. They’re now truly at the point where they don’t have the subspecialization of staff but their shortfalls oftentimes are in cash and so when they’re looking at some of these things they’re like well heck. How do we do this without all of the stockpile of?

[10:55]
Dollars behind it and so what we try and calculate for those clients is there are ways to do it cost effectively and efficiently you may not be able to do it A to Z but you know what doing it a to f is a lot better than not doing it at all and so we have means of going in there with setting up for them using Analytics but in a cost effective and also using some of the machine-based tools that Steve alluded to a little bit earlier that we’re trying now to to really enhance to make those things cost effective and seamless so an obvious question you’ve got these Analytics how do you use them? What how do you advise people on again? Which Analytics and how do you interpret them because you know.

[11:38]
Any kind of numerical data is only as good as your ability to interpret it right agreed and any information that ultimately we get from market research. You know we’re big with the stance of we have to optimize. What goes into the market research first you know it’s the Old thought process garbage and garbage out. It doesn’t really matter right what the methodology dynamic actually is when it’s all said and done, so you know as a Consulting division now a Boundless were very aggressive about the overall mission of the group is very aggressive about evidence-based.

[12:15]
We were groomed on evidence-based philosophies now the words are easy to use but usually very difficult in order to adjustify at a client level so an example of it as we dive into creating the market Analytics to feed the market research. It probably takes us a couple of months of optimizing the review of the market landscape whether it be through competitive intelligence through it whether it be through public sources and we actually dig pretty deep on the end on the side of clinicals with nih PubMed and a variety of other data sets that ultimately we dive into that accumulation dynamic, then ultimately ends up feeding the research so now to the exact question Steve of how is it used we begin that process of evaluating once we understand market level clinical claims and overall importance of those which

[13:15]
The way we’ve infused the clinical claims of the base brand that we’re actually working on for the client as well. It’s not in the market yet, but we’ve already started that process of speculating on what those outcomes may or may not be from a clinical perspective we end up even generating a simulator dynamic on the back end for inferential analysis out of this market research that gives you the opportunity to go in and evaluate fulfillment of attributes versus unfulfillment of attributes up against five other compounds in the sequence so in doing so remember with the ultimate goal being what is the financial payoff for the organization? That’s where we’re going sooner or later. That’s the end result no matter who the discipline is so under those circumstances with the inferential analysis that we can do via the simulator Dynamics after the magnitude of information has been accumulated.

[14:15]
Allows us to get to the point of where’s our greatest point of differentiation for the brand Francesco mentioned you know positioning Dynamics tpps associated with product as marketing people were all about differentiation. We’re just now layering the other element within a positioning dynamic of motivation so the higher the relative importance of the attribute to the overall target audience greater the motivation that the doctor’s going to be interested to use and if we’re the only brand that fulfills that unmet need we have an anchoring dynamic. That’s definitely going to drive market share so the bottom line. Is is that the back end of this sequence and there’s a variety of different disciplines that are involved with it. We haven’t got to that yet, but with the a variety of disciplines that feed this dynamic and with the back end analysis that comes out of the market research.

[15:15]
The clinical team the commercial team the market Analytics team has the ability to sit with senior management and rationalize through that scenario analysis dynamic via the simulator pieces that are available to say this is what we should be pursuing this is why we should be pursuing we’ve checked the boxes off on the market Analytics and now we’ve also checked the boxes off on the clinical side to say can we fulfill that attribute or not for the English majors in the audience? What’s inferential analysis scenario planning basically, so it’s a what if basically when it’s just a phrase you use when you’re in front of your investors. I guess to make you sound smarter not he’s not just a privilege these things roll. We don’t we don’t have to use that if you don’t want to no, it’s okay. It doesn’t matter to me the beautiful thing about it though, Steve is when you

[16:15]
When you bring all this together back to some of the thing that we mentioned very early on the sooner you engage in doing this analysis the better offer the entirety organization because as you imagine going through this at various stages of development if you’re later closer to commercialization. Great this helps you batten down the hatches on what you’re actually going to go to market with whether that’s pretty launch launch phase all that fantastic dial it back a little bit earlier even while you’re still in clinical trial development or enrollment this can actually feed into what is the trial design? What are some of these inclusion exclusion criteria. That should be considered. What are some of the pros that might have been missed. If not for taking a look at this and as we’ve all heard now very recently right clinical trials versus Real World evidence oftentimes our night and day different and if we can get our trial enrollment to be more inclusive to look more like the real world by doing some of this analysis early on not only are the companies going to be better off for it, but ultimately when that product hits.

[17:15]
Market it mitigates some of that skepticism of well. I don’t really know if that’s going to play itself out in the real market. So you know you guys make the point quite rightly that it’s smart to get started on everything bringing everything together as early in the process as possible right, but I have to imagine that everything that you do. It’s not just a closed system right at some point you need to go outside and bring in some expert expert help. How does that work? Yeah? You know we would normally after we’ve dug deep into generating the information to put into the market research. We would normally do a gut check normally with the clients key opinion leaders their senior advisory board Physicians that are actually advising them on what the brand should be and why.

[18:09]
Now it’s an interesting balance at least in my opinion. I don’t know how you feel about this Francesco but you know the the upper echelon key opinion leaders are what they are. They’re upper echelon key opinion leaders that are deep into science maybe even beyond the common practitioner within that specialty area however given the fact that we’re so early in clinical development. It’s absolutely critical that we have that level of expertise to consider all those dynamics in order to make the right decisions, but we do normally have a tendency to balance it usually the client will have other market Analytics going on at the same time even if they’re early in development ie and a t u analysis as a baseline or just general market dynamic overviews about what the treatment algorithm actually is for this area, so we like to take in the consideration key opinion leaders senior.

[19:09]
Is re-board groups senior management is going away in especially based upon? They can’t help themselves. They can’t help themselves and the smaller the organization the fewer the products in the portfolio the heavier the lift is going to come from senior management on what those critical decisions are and certainly with the cco the cmo as well as the CFO on the back end for all the financial modeling in forecasting pieces which by the way we do those as well with the client if ultimately they want to do that.

[19:43]
We usually get a heavy weigh in of senior management c-suite and even beyond and I will take it one step further not to say not in agreement with that but and not a butt that value of going out and also getting the reality-based checks from Beyond just clinicians, but also patients and depending on the disease state especially when you consider things like rare disease going up to advocacy groups because oftentimes their stakeholder input as we’ve seen with recent approvals if it weren’t for those advocacy groups some of these drugs wouldn’t have even gotten beyond the fdx you talking about rare diseases articular exactly yeah, so we work with those groups as well because even at that at that early phase again. It’s just as instrumental to understand. What is it that that group which are so as we all know extremely passionate. I mean they live and die literally for these conditions and for their their spouses or children or whatnot you know it’s it’s absolutely instrumental that we hear from them early in this process, too.

[20:43]
Because they give us that that next level set it just says a reinforcement you know we can do this analysis for both target audience absolutely not just physician, but also for patient and we’ve done that simultaneously so they’re on the back end. Not only can you tell what motivates one group versus the other but you can find the commonality Dynamics that are most important to boat target audiences that ends up driving the compatibility of prepositioning work message Dynamics so on and so forth so that both audiences are on the same page from the very very beginning so there’s a lot of synergy Dynamics that actually go in there, so I’d like to get a little bit nitty gritty if we could what you’re what you’re talking about makes perfect sense right, but anybody who’s ever worked in an organization be it a large one or a small one understands that every organization is composed of tribes right and sometimes those.

[21:43]
Are really good at communicating and working together and sometimes they get used the word earlier siloed they get siloed and they can be Turkey right so if you trying to get the clinical in the commercial to start working together as early in the process as possible. What are some practical tips that you would advise people to consider. I mean beyond breaking bread and you know a fine cigar or bourbon. You know which is always a great starter. I’ll sign up. Yeah the reality of it. I’m going to give you a simplistic answer because we’ve kind of started some of the discussion with the simplicity of these things it really comes down to showing any group The wiffle for them right and we’ve done just that I’ll try and be vague with them by the way if you’re if you’re listening at home with them as what’s in it for me correct correct. I don’t have my my PlayBook I apologize for that but literally breaking it down for each independent group.

[22:43]
I’ll try and be vague without disclosing anything of a recent situation. We’ve been and where it was clinical market research or or their in-house Analytics group and commercial very much. I’ll use your tribalism mentality. They were all in their own space and we were approaching them with this construct and with this service offering but each group was kind of going into their own Direction so independently we sat down with each of them to tell them this is what you are going to ultimately get out of this and be able to take away for your superiors, etc. Etc. So each of them had a slightly different end goal. So it was almost like looking through a crystal right the different or prison the prism. Yeah the prism you know depending on which side you’re looking at it you see something different and so when we expose them to that. That’s sort of that aha moment where clinical goes. Oh, I get it this isn’t just a marketing thing or the analytics guy goes. Oh I get it this isn’t just a commercial driver vehicle this is actually going to

[23:42]
Me plan out the rest of my market research analysis for the next year. Oh, so the lights went on so I don’t want to say it’s that easy but ultimately it comes down to if you convince the relative gatekeeper or stakeholder. What is it that you’re going to help them accomplish? That’s ultimately going to make their live a little bit easier or frictionless. That’s where we see the teams actually come together. So I’d like to use a metaphor maybe I might be belaboring this so I hope you’ll bear with me but what it seems like is that a lot of these Enterprise is are you know you can think of them as the liberal arts building at a college right and down one end you’ve got the the painters and the musicians in the English Majors and then down the other end you’ve got the analytics guys in the scientists right somebody from either under the building needs to meet in the middle and in the cafeteria and be able to

[24:42]
That like the people down in the the artsy wing need to be able to talk to the people in the science wing and vice versa right usually the psych major.

[24:54]
There you go next time I design a liberal arts building. I’m no exactly where to where to put what departments indeed time, but how do you do that like? How do you actually facilitate that conversation so a lot of entry points for me in the past for this kind of work?

[25:12]
And let me just stress this kind of work isn’t just for the early phase of Clinical development which I think I had mentioned a little bit earlier.

[25:21]
It carries itself through the entire life cycle and the rationale for that. Is is that let’s say the lifecycle is 12 to 15 years for patent life for any typical sort of brand during that time period there are new drugs introduced their new clinical claims introduced their new market Dynamics that are introduced and ultimately if that analysis isn’t refreshed and we encourage it every two years in order to optimize an insight on are we still on track are there additional elements of differentiation that we need to be pursuing or even at a point Steve where clinical should be thinking about 3B trials after FDA gives approval so under those circumstances. This is a leverageable tool through the entire life cycle okay with that ultimately said the transitional element for people to buy into this. I’ve experienced personally.

[26:16]
Couple of different ways to francesco’s suggestion where we put people in the room together. That’s usually the the best Turning Point it’s spearheaded normally through commercial because commercial gets it almost immediately they tend to be the ones who are driving like they’re driving it at that point but we want to Institute a partnership dynamic early an early synergistic integration of multiple disciplines in the organization because we know if it gets instilled early in clinical development. It’s going to carry itself although all the way through the life cycle and in doing so you have a much better chance of optimizing that brand performance because the internal culture now is already integrated as early as possible, so the one element that I’ve always seen is let’s put them in the room. Let’s make sure the commercial Spearhead

[27:16]
It but it’s within the partnership and the overall objective of we just want to optimize the brand we want to optimize. What’s out coming out of the clinical development. We want to optimize that FDA package insert that I’m going to get from this information in order to promote the brand that’s sort of the overall goal and that optimization of it makes it almost a habit that then you get into muscle memory and that’s again going back to where is the life cycle of a company the earlier and emerging company or a smaller company or a startup company when they do that it becomes their discipline and they’re working model going forward so that becomes habit when you’re going into a large organization. It is a little bit more challenging to sometime break older habits or ingrain them with different thinking but again. It’s still the same tenets you get them together you understand what each discipline is going to learn or gain from it. You build the trust and it goes from there the bottom line.

[28:16]
Is that that last that additional venue in order to really integrate the groups together in a better way if indeed there’s paradigms built within the organization about how people are thinking.

[28:30]
Usually a little bit of a touch at a senior management level which we get involved with all the time whether it be at c-suits. Whether it be down underneath advice president levels that have portfolio responsibilities of Brands the intuitive thinking around the analytics. It’s there once we start through to walk through the the depth of the evidence based analysis that we jump into and the multitude of disciplines that ultimately integrate for that input for that research.

[29:05]
Usually out of VP level the VP usually says Well yeah, I want it for this drug. I wonder for this drug. I wonder for this drug. You know it just becomes a very intuitive type of dynamic. Yeah.

[29:19]
Because you can’t beat good Analytics you simply cannot there it is and it’s funny that you came back to that is Francesco and I’ve always talked you know the mission as we’ve started to integrate around commercial Consulting our mission dynamic is all about Analytics we don’t do subjectivity kind of analysis where we’ll bring a group into a room and sit around and speculate on what we think we know we either know and if we don’t know then we would normally encourage the client to go out and get some information or build the appropriate market research elements in order to bring the right information and that that speaks to another point for us our footprint is broad when we do strategic planning. You know certainly we do it with commercial. There’s no doubt about that one, but we also do market research market analytic planning for the brand and

[30:19]
And we do medical affairs planning everything from three to five year clinical development pieces that might be the phase 3B trials associated with the product after approval up to all the operational elements around annual brand planning for the for the coming year up to including further indication analysis things of that nature and even at the corporate level we’ve done work with helping companies with their JP Morgan presentations going out there fundraising so that level of Analytics is I like what you said. It’s the proverbial red thread that kind of goes through everything here the additional piece to that that I think is very intriguing is I like to also like in this back to a genuine sense of Curiosity and the reason why I bring that up. Is you know we’ve all experienced it where there’s far too many folks that you going to room with them and they’re like well. I know this I know that I’ve been in this industry 20 years and

[31:19]
A minute they start saying I know I know I know the next question you asked them. That’s the layer deep the response always comes back. Well. I think this is what in the minute I hear that that’s when I know all right. This is this is a monumental moment where you need to Shift Your Mind space right, but the folks that aren’t willing to be curious the genuinely don’t say I want to find that out. Are they well if I think this that’s the direction. We’re going that’s likely not going to be the ones that are going to want to sign up for this type of activity. So you know like I said you know the evidence base phrasing. I think is a simple one everybody likes to use under different circumstances. I think the other element that certainly brings differentiation around the Consulting side and Boundless as an organization is the level of experience because we’ve worked on so many brands, whether they be rare disease or whether they be 10 million patient 20 million patient size in the United States that the critical levers that.

[32:19]
Similarly differentiate and move market share regardless if it’s a highly competitive market space or its market space that quote unquote doesn’t have any competition at all which I’m always worried about you know you and I’ve always talked about this. You know unless there’s absolutely nothing being used for any patient whatever was being used regardless of indication dynamic is competition Lisa as far as we’re concern off-lab will be damned. That’s exactly correct but you would be shocked with you know some of the pushback that you might end up getting we don’t know if that’s a corporate rhetoric dynamic internally or if they actually do believe it from a market dynamic perspective but the bottom line. Is is that that evidence-based gets overlaid with the appropriate experience Dynamics of the levers that we know because of what we are and what we’ve done and the level of experience on the client side for commercial.

[33:18]
What moves Brand and that’s a critical element of differentiation a lot of people want to say you know I’m all about the experience level and that’s what I actually am we actually put it to test on a day to day basis, so last question guys and I’d like each one of you to answer this we all know that medical marketing. Is is it’s a hard game right? What’s your one best piece of advice from medical marketers today like right now. I’ll go first as you’re thinking about it. You know for me as the end result being optimizing P&L because that’s why they go to work on a day to day optimizing P&L the critical anchor underneath optimizing P&L for any brand is clinical differentiation.

[34:11]
Clinical differentiation that ultimately fulfills critical unmet needs or driver analysis associated with audience if I put those two simple pieces together even if I’m not very good at what I do once that offering goes out the door to the audience the audience says it’s what I want and number two. You’re the only one that gives it to me one way or the other so the ultimate Quest in my opinion for medical marketing should be I’m going to generate the greatest amount of Clinical data. Set that fulfills the most important need to the target audience in the most differentiated clinical manner that I can actually provide my commercial team with.

[35:00]
So can’t disagree with any of that and in short. I’ll try and go a little bit more philosophical to answer that question I think the biggest piece of advice to give it anybody right now today regardless of department commercial Analytics clindev, wherever you might be met affairs.

[35:16]
The minute you think you know everything is when the train goes right by you and and it’s sounds very simple, but it’s true. I love learning I love finding out something new you mentioned it. You know this game that we do is not easy, but that’s what keeps me engaged is trying to learn more stuff every day the amount of clients. I’ve come in contact with over 30 years now that when they say they know this market well enough.

[35:46]
It’s the minute. They’re watching their competitors passing by so that’s the biggest piece advice. I give anybody wherever they’re at their career. Just starting out 20 years in you’ve got to be hungry you gotta be curious to know what else is out there and that’s where Analytics and insight development truly comes from lifelong learning that’s a great place to stop you guys Steven Francesco have been great this has been a really interesting conversation appreciate it really appreciate you guys coming in it’s great. Thanks a lot. Yeah. Thanks a lot.