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Leading to fewer opportunities for launches to be considered, a situation in which unique launches for areas of high unmet need are more likely to continue to thrive than launches representing incremental improvement in an area with existing treatments.
White Paper
Launch Excellence VII
Three Pillars of post-Pandemic Launch Excellence
Sep 20, 2021
Introduction
This is the seventh Launch Excellence white paper that IQVIA has published since 2007, but never has the Launch Excellence environment changed so dramatically and comprehensively as in the last year. To respond, we’ve divided our launch cohort into a pre-Pandemic cohort, which we have followed for 18 months of performance unaffected by the Pandemic, and the launches from late 2019, which have launched into the Pandemic during part or all of their crucial first six months on the market, evaluating those launches for their first six months. We’ve also added China to our cohort of critical Launch Excellence countries for the first time, recognising China’s dramatic rise in innovative launch potential, and bringing our core Launch Excellence countries to eight — the US, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan and China.
Starting with a short review of how the launch environment evolved to where it was pre-Pandemic, we turn immediately to the types of innovative launch we believe will thrive in the post-Pandemic environment, and the areas of focus — the Three Pillars of post-Pandemic Launch Excellence — which will drive success for those launches. We’ll then apply our Launch Excellence criteria to the pre-Pandemic launch cohort and analyse how the Pandemic cohort have fared. For detailed methodologies, turn to the Methodology.
In Launch Excellence VII, 6% of specialty launches are excellent internationally. 4% of primary care launches are excellent internationally.
Which launches will succeed in the post-Pandemic world?
As health systems recover and reach a new equilibrium, the legacy of the Pandemic will continue to affect which launches succeed, because the Pandemic has made substantial and very long-lasting changes to aspects of healthcare environment critical to launch.
Resilience in the Pandemic environment
Launch which have been proven to be resilient in the Pandemic environment, and have the clear potential to be in the post-Pandemic environment, fall into these categories.
Are resilient and succeeded in the Pandemic environment. That success will continue in the post-Pandemic world due to their unique nature, although companies launching will need to work carefully on building the patient pipe if the post-Pandemic healthcare environment throws up incremental challenges to patient identification.
Increasing patient convenience and reducing capacity burden on health systems also succeeded in the Pandemic and will continue to succeed in the post-Pandemic world, although companies launching them need to develop deep insight into patient experience and make a robust case for the advantages of self/home administration.
As the economic impact of the Pandemic crisis rises and feeds through to medicines budgets, price competition will be an increasingly necessary option for launches which cannot differentiate sufficiently on other factors.
Could become temporarily more relevant in the post-Pandemic environment where, for a period at least, patients may be presenting in later stages of disease because of lack of early diagnosis and treatment. One clear contrast in 2020 launch success has been between Orphan and non-Orphan medicines. Orphan launches proved much more resilient and are overrepresented in 2020’s commercial successes. Non-Orphan launches are more likely to enter therapy areas where there are existing treatments. In the uncertain environment of the Pandemic, prescribers often defaulted to existing treatments they are familiar with, rather than risk unknown products, even if they possessed incremental advantage. These “tried and tested” familiar products are also likely to be beneficiaries of post-Pandemic backlog clearance. Greater use of these means less opportunity for innovative launches. Companies with launches that fit this description must be realistic about their situation and actively build a strategy to address it. Above all, they must pay meticulous attention to the three pillars of post-Pandemic Launch Excellence.
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Launch Excellence VII
The three pillars of post-Pandemic Launch Excellence.
This is the seventh Launch Excellence white paper that IQVIA has published since 2007, but never has the Launch Excellence environment changed so dramatically and comprehensively as in the last year. To respond, we've divided our launch cohort into a pre-pandemic cohort, which we have followed for 18 months of performance unaffected by the Pandemic, and the launches from late 2019, which have launched into the Pandemic during part or all of their crucial first six months on the market, evaluating those launches for their first six months.
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