Three Tips to Successfully Launch Your First Product

Sixty seven percent (67%) of new drugs fail to meet pre-launch consensus sales expectations their first year on the market.¹ More concerning is that a majority of these drugs continue to underperform even three years post-launch, costing the industry hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue.

“By the numbers: the hard facts of commercial product launches”

So, what is the secret to making your product launch a success? Here are three best practices to build a commercial organization that maximizes the chance of a successful product launch.

1. Begin commercial planning activities in Phase 2
   Providing launch teams sufficient time and resources to prepare for product introduction is critical to success. Identifying, engaging, and establishing credibility with the right key opinion leaders (KOLs) earlier provides field teams insights to prove the clinical efficacy and health-economic value of the new product relative to other interventions in the market. Teams can also prepare content to more accurately align with the what customers want to consume.
2. Prepare an agile go-to-market program
   Pre-commercial companies are more likely to achieve revenue goals if they establish a commercial environment that fosters agile, efficient, and intelligent engagement. With a solid commercial infrastructure, medical and commercial functions are better aligned to collaborate and provide more coordinated interactions with the customer. They can easily collect data (i.e., field feedback on territory alignments, provider engagement data, content use and effectiveness), draw actionable insights, and rapidly refine their go-to-market strategy. With the flexibility to adjust as circumstance require, commercial teams can experiment with innovation in both business processes and technology.
3. Structure your commercial strategy around customers
   When companies effectively engage with customers and generate insights through interactions, they have the opportunity to outperform established competitors. Providing commercial and medical teams with a 360-degree view of the customer results in a customer engagement program that is intelligent and efficient.

   Further, they can use key insights and guidance to develop a data-driven brand strategy as well as product messaging for both launch and ongoing pro¬motion. As a result, commercial teams can drive intelligent, tailored interactions with customers across all channels.

Building Your Foundation for Commercial Launch Success

Implementing new technology and a customized launch plan creates the foundation for a scalable commercial program that will help you realize peak revenue faster. Companies that use a defined launch methodology can initiate market readiness activities earlier in the development process, rather than the highly condensed timelines typically associated with a first-time product launch. With an integrated commercial cloud approach, technology becomes the enabler rather than the barrier to overall launch success for maximum commercial impact.

Get more launch insights from our white paper, Best Practices for Successfully Launching Your First Commercial Product.

_{¹ McKinsey & Company (2014, March) The secret of successful drug launches}