Medication adherence technology, meaning bottles, blisters and labels that record when a patient takes a dose, had existed for more than twenty years without mainstream use in clinical trials. Thermo Fisher had tried to build an offer around it twice. The last attempt ended in a pilot with mixed results, operational problems and no clear strategy.
When I joined, the product manager on the project moved to another role. I took it over as product director and program lead.
The actual problem
Every pharma company qualified smart-packaging vendors on its own. One vendor cost about $2M and 12 to 18 months, per company, and that covered a single form factor: bottles, or blisters, or pouches.
The decision
Rather than pick a technology, we would qualify the serious vendors once, through a strict process, and offer the pool to every client. The qualification cost was ours, paid once, and it served every sponsor. No other CDMO had a pre-qualified portfolio.
The pool grew to five vendors covering bottles, blisters, labels and dispensers: Aardex, Schreiner, CMT, Med-Con and Spencer Health. Spencer Health was added for one client's request covering more than 11,000 patients.
The work
I wrote the business plan in my first three months, during onboarding. Alongside the stage-gate business case, I ran a Strategyzer process with senior directors to test what we still didn't know. It was new for the group and carried risk, because some tests touched contracts, so Legal was part of them from the start. The VP of Product Management signed off on the approach.
Customers split by size and digital maturity. A large pharma company that knew what it wanted needed one contract for a pool of suppliers. A small biotech with little experience needed us to handle everything.
I also built two tools for the launch: a landing page to capture leads, and a pricing model in VBA that let sales price by patient, trial phase and protocol.
The friction
The surprise was Accounting. Talking to every function involved, I found that Accounting was routinely left out of the company's project process. In a large company, money doesn't move just because a contract is signed. Catching it before launch avoided a serious problem after it.
What happened
We launched nine months after I took over, with a cross-functional team of twelve. Years one and two missed their targets; adoption in clinical trials is slow. Year three reached the $20M revenue target, with gross margin above the division's target. The company kept the qualification process, so new form factors can be added quickly and cheaply.
The next step on the roadmap was a single data platform across vendors, for predictive adherence analytics.
What I would do differently
Adoption was slower than we projected. I argued for more investment in lead generation and channels, and lost. A new service inside a large company needs its own route to market. The existing sales channel isn't enough, however big the company.