Pharma CI Competitive Intelligence Corporate Intelligence Consulting

Robust Pharma Competitive Intelligence and CI Monitoring Services

Providing superior pharma strategies, based on actionable corporate intelligence, and a global competitive landscape analysis

At Two Labs, we take great pride in offering exceptionally robust pharma competitive intelligence and monitoring services, enabling your business to gain the competitive advantage that only superior knowledge and actionable insight can provide.

Our pharma CI programs are custom-designed to furnish you with detailed competitive analysis and corporate intelligence based on actual primary source interviews. They are customized to meet your specific and unique needs, and typically include a combination of commercial and clinical issues.

Ad hoc/point-in-time and annual monitoring competitive intelligence services are available.

What Is Competitive Intelligence (CI), and How Does Pharma Competitive Intelligence Differ From Pharma Market Research and Similar Efforts?

Competitive Intelligence, or CI, is a phrase that is often misunderstood and sometimes misrepresented. Pharma marketing professionals and others in the pharmaceutical business owe it to themselves and their stakeholders to obtain truly insightful and actionable competitive intelligence. It is therefore helpful to understand both what pharma CI is not, and what qualifies as true competitive intelligence.

What Pharma Competitive Intelligence is Not

Competitive Intelligence, or CI, is not mysterious
There is nothing mysterious about pharma CI. Rather, CI is based on factual, valuable information gathered from trusted industry sources, and analyzed by highly competent and insightful pharmaceutical industry professionals.

Competitive Intelligence is not Google/search engine research, espionage, or pharma market research
While pharma market research may provide valuable information, it is not CI. Although exhaustive research may include price analysis, SWOT analysis, location analysis reports, brand valuations, web survey analysis, trend analysis, and more, such research does not qualify as pharma CI or true corporate intelligence.

Pharma competitive intelligence infographic

Competitive Intelligence Definition for the Pharma Industry

The Two Labs definition of pharma CI (competitive intelligence), which we apply to every pharmaceutical and biotechnology CI consulting engagement, is as follows:

“Competitive Intelligence for the pharma and biotech industry is a systematic process for the legal and ethical collection, objective analysis, and controlled dissemination of actionable intelligence to decision-makers about their competitors’ objectives, strategies, assumptions, and capabilities.” ~ Two Labs

What CI May Reveal About Your Pharma Industry Competitors

Competitive intelligence and analysis, when properly executed, may provide invaluable information about your pharmaceutical and biotech competitors, including:

  • What your competitors may be able to accomplish as revealed by an analysis of their capabilities
  • What your competitors believe about themselves and the pharma industry, as revealed by an analysis of their assumptions
  • Your competitors’ future goals as revealed by analyzing their current actions and strategy

Better Drug Development Strategies by Analyzing the Past & Modeling the Future

How We Use Competitive Intelligence to Analyze the Past:

  • Externally directed on competitors
  • Analyze trends and activities of regulatory authorities
  • Analyze market response to new agents
  • Reveal mistakes to be avoided

How We Use CI to Model the Future:

  • Predict “most likely” competitor scenarios
  • Anticipate response of regulatory authorities to outcomes of new initiatives
  • Identify and adapt to changing standards of care

Considerations for Performing CI In-House vs. Using a Pharma CI Firm

Performing Competitive Intelligence Activities In-House

  • Identify competitors in a specific therapeutic area via the use of databases
  • Leverage internal knowledge for the benefit of the asset development team
  • Requires a dedicated staff and appropriate budget


Benefits of Using a Competitive Intelligence Firm

  • Ability to gather primary intelligence without internal bias
  • Ability to effectively aggregate primary & secondary information
  • Broader experience makes it easier to “connect the dots” – providing a more thorough and global view of the competitive landscape

Guidelines for Creating an Effective CI Process

Information and process for creating corporate intelligence must be objective, external, disciplined, and real-time

  • Identify and quantify competitive threats
  • Confirm and refute internal thinking as appropriate
  • Point out alternatives – avoid “train wrecks”
  • Suggest adaptive scenarios

Pharma Competitive Intelligence: Strategic, Tactical, & Counter

Strategic Intelligence:
This type of pharma CI is concerned mainly with competitor analysis, and is very forward-thinking and predictive (future-focused). Examples include: R&D strategy, specific product strategy, business development strategy, etc.

Tactical Intelligence:
Generally operational and performed on a smaller scale; centered more on the here-and-now than on the future. Examples include: product differentiation, pricing policies, sales organization, etc.

Counter Intelligence:
Pharma CI focused on protecting company secrets.

How Pharma Competitive Intelligence Needs and Focus Vary Across the Business Value Chain

  • Research phase: Focused on disease analysis, platforms, technologies, targets
  • Licensing phase: Focused on potential products, mechanism of action, company reviews, competitive bidders, IP (patents)
  • Development phase: Focused on clinical endpoints, potential claims, time to market, clinical issues
  • Manufacturing phase: Focused on bulk sources, cost analysis, capacity, technical assessments
  • Marketing phase: Focused on phase III & IV, market dynamics, environment
  • LCM phase: Focused on new formulations, product line extensions, IP (patents), regulatory issues, generic launches
Pharma competitive intelligence infographic

Pharma Competitive Intelligence Cycle

  1. Planning & Direction: Identify & disseminate key intelligence topics
  2. Collection: Corporate intelligence collection & reporting
  3. Information Processing & Storage: Creating a knowledgebase augmented with primary intelligence
  4. Analysis & Reporting: Making corporate intelligence both actionable and understandable
  5. Dissemination: Knowledge sharing with other users
Pharma competitive intelligence graphic

Learn More

Not all competitive intelligence companies are alike. To learn more about our extensive range of competitive intelligence consulting services for the pharma and biotech industries, contact us.

We’re here to support your success from clinical to commercial – and beyond.

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