What makes a rare disease launch?
It’s a question that has fuelled our efforts in the pharmaceutical industry, as more and more rare disease indications and launches come to market. It’s inspiring to observe pharmaceutical teams achieve success in this domain, often by honing in on five key areas and maintaining a relentless commitment to efficiency while never losing sight of the patients. Our Rare Disease and Early Commercialisation and Launch experts have put together 5 key launch capabilities for a rare disease launch that teams should embed to ensure they are equipped with the right mindset and ways of working to transform outcomes and deliver maximum impact.
Discover the five key rare disease launch capabilities
1. Innovative pricing and access strategies
- Navigation of orphan drug status, R&D incentives, fast-track status and real-world evidence (RWE) to optimise speed to market and access
- Ability to map national and territory funding flows, bodies and processes for all key local markets
- Creation of a clear value proposition and price aligned to priority local markets with supporting services, education, use of technologies
- Creation of flexible, innovative pricing and contracting strategies
- Payer research and engagement plan for payer KOLs
- Clear sequencing of global launch countries to optimise pricing negotiations
- Competitor monitoring of launch dates, prices, discounts and access
2. Customer segmentation and micro-targeting
- Ability to map all key stakeholders across payers / decision-makers, physicians, patients for each rare disease
- Identification of key individuals and prioritised, specific customer segments for a mix of face-to-face and digital engagement
- Clear focus on priority segments, with engagement beginning at least 3 years pre-launch to shape launch strategy, decisions and tactics
- Ability to reach wider customer segments with more generalist roles through impactful digital interactions to optimise limited budgets
3. Key opinion leader (KOL) / patient advocacy group (PAG) relationships
- Key individuals across payer, physician and patient groups are identified for each priority country
- Launch team members all have aligned relationships and a clear KOL plan in place for collaborative working
- KOL / PAG engagement starts 2 – 3 years pre-launch with a consistent, sustained series of engagement activities
- Tracking is in place to measure KOL / PAG activity, brand and company advocacy and overall customer experience
4. Navigation of the patient pathway
- The patient journey across the different phases of symptom recognition, referral, diagnosis, treatment and follow-up is clearly mapped for each priority market
- Clear identification of barriers within the patient pathway
- Highly customised, integrated patient support services to reach the right treatment centre and optimise outcomes
- Innovative use of technology to enable generalist physicians to recognise and refer a potential patient to the right specialist physician or centre with urgency
5. Expert, cohesive launch teams
- Core launch team members in place at least 3 years pre-launch with clear objectives, dedicated (hybrid) roles and budget
- Clear launch plan in place – at a strategic and operational level with key launch readiness milestones across global, regional and local teams
- Launch team members have an expert level of disease, product and patient knowledge
- Clear governance and efficient ways of working established, leveraging the wider organisation’s resources and relationships
- Launch objectives, ambition, measures of success defined pre- and post-launch
- Have a clear understanding of your launch readiness, using a launch excellence tool like LExLevel Pulse.
If you’d like to discuss any of these 5 themes in more detail to accelerate the uptake of your rare disease brand, contact us below.
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