Author: Gaurav Sharma
Introduction
The pharmaceutical industry is renowned for its highly competitive nature, which has intensified in recent years due to the proliferation of both branded and generic product segments. Pharmaceutical competitor analysis is the process of assessing and understanding competitors to design winning strategies and tactics. It’s crucial for pharmaceutical companies to conduct thorough pharma competitive analysis, as it forms the foundation of competitive planning for brands and companies, which is critical for growth in an industry transitioning to a shorter and less profitable life cycle model.
Many pharmaceutical companies still rely on outdated and superficial competitor research methods, which can lead to dangerous blind spots and competitive threats. A comprehensive pharmaceutical competitor analysis helps companies in targeting the right customers, forecasting market potential, and matching competitor pricing.
Key Components of Pharma Competitive Analysis
Product Portfolio and Market Share
R&D Pipeline
Financial Data
Marketing Strategies and Stakeholder Relationships
Regulatory Compliance and Manufacturing Capabilities
Here are some key steps involved in the competitive research which can add depth to the competitor analysis:
Step 1: Finding the Right Team
The first crucial step in conducting a systematic, insightful, and multidimensional pharmaceutical competitor analysis is assembling the right team. This should include a multidisciplinary group of internal consultants and external professionals if required. It’s important not to rely solely on competitive intelligence dealers, who mainly focus on data accumulation and competitive surveillance.
Instead, companies should engage professionals with expertise in elaborate pharma competitive analysis, planning, strategy, and implementation. These experts can provide access to proper methodologies, tools, and structures to lead and assist in developing a comprehensive competitor research process.
Step 2: Identify Competitors
In this step of pharmaceutical competitor analysis, companies should identify not only their direct competitors but also indirect competitors and potential future entrants to the market. This comprehensive view helps in understanding the full competitive landscape.
Step 3: Gather Information
Information gathering is a critical phase of pharma competitive analysis. Companies should collect data on competitors’ product portfolios, R&D pipelines, financial performance, market share, and marketing strategies. This information forms the basis for further competitor research.
Step 4: Competitive Personality Analysis
Competitive personality analysis involves unearthing the distinct personality of each company, including one’s own. This step in pharmaceutical competitor analysis addresses critical questions such as how a company thinks and acts, what the competitor’s product profile is, what salesforce will be used to back the competitor’s product, and what the competitive differentiation will be.
By analyzing corporate presentations, executive profiles, competitive intelligence, and other gathered information, pharma companies can gain insight into a competitor’s way of thinking and potential future actions.
Step 5: Analyze Product Offerings
This step of pharma competitive analysis involves a detailed examination of competitors’ product offerings, including the therapeutic areas they focus on, various dosage forms, pricing strategies, and upcoming patent expirations.
Step 6: Evaluate R&D Capabilities
Assessing competitors’ R&D capabilities provides insight into their future potential. This competitor research includes analyzing their current research focus, progress in clinical trials, key partnerships and collaborations, and various innovation metrics.
Step 7: Assess Financial Performance
Financial analysis helps in understanding the competitive position and resources of rival companies. This aspect of pharmaceutical competitor analysis includes examining revenue and profit trends, R&D expenditure, marketing and sales expenses, and return on investment.
Step 8: Strategic Stakeholder Analysis
In today’s market, prescription power is increasingly being transferred from patients and physical care providers to other strategic stakeholders. These include regulators, governments, professional societies, policymakers, the media, health technology evaluation groups, and retailers. A detailed analysis of these strategic stakeholders and how competitors engage with them is crucial in pharma competitive analysis, as they play an essential role in the adoption and use of particular brands.
Step 9: Examine Market Positioning
This step of pharmaceutical competitor analysis involves analyzing how competitors position themselves in the market, including their brand perception, market share in different therapeutic areas, geographic presence, and target customer segments.
Step 10: Analyze Marketing and Sales Strategies
Understanding competitors’ marketing and sales strategies is crucial in pharma competitive analysis. This includes examining their promotional tactics, sales force effectiveness, digital marketing initiatives, and engagement with key opinion leaders.
Step 11: Review Regulatory Compliance and Legal Aspects
The pharmaceutical industry is heavily regulated, making it important to review competitors’ regulatory compliance and legal standing as part of competitor research. This includes examining their history of regulatory approvals and setbacks, any ongoing litigation, and their overall compliance track record.
Step 12: Investigate Manufacturing and Supply Chain
Analyzing competitors’ manufacturing capabilities and supply chain efficiency can provide insights into their operational strengths and weaknesses, which is an essential part of pharmaceutical competitor analysis.
Step 13: SWOT Analysis
A SWOT analysis helps identify and evaluate the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that a company faces. This information is used to analyze the position of a company as well as that of its competitors. It informs upper management about areas where the company excels, improvements required, potential growth opportunities, and preemptive measures needed to safeguard the company or shareholder value.
Step 14: Synthesize Insights and Develop Strategies
The final step of pharma competitive analysis involves synthesizing all the gathered insights to identify competitive advantages and formulate strategies. This comprehensive analysis should inform decision-making and strategic planning.
Conclusion
In conclusion, thorough and ongoing pharmaceutical competitor analysis is crucial in the ever-evolving pharmaceutical industry. It enables companies to stay ahead of market trends, anticipate competitor moves, and adapt their strategies accordingly. As the industry continues to face challenges and changes, the ability to conduct insightful pharma competitive analysis and competitor research will be a key differentiator for successful pharmaceutical companies.
