Pre-Clinical ADME/PK Services Company – Market Strategy, Product Development & Branding
A preclinical ADME services provider started out with a mix of disparate technologies and no revenue stream. Its goal was to revolutionize the design and selection of compounds in pharmaceutical drug discovery by providing high quality, reproducible data on compounds’ absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion (ADME) properties and using the data to accurately predict blood plasma levels (known as pharmacokinetics – PK) in humans. By using high throughput technology platforms, it was able to build the capability to screen 100s – 1000s of compounds at a time, making it suitable for large-scale pre-clinical compound screening.
At the time, competing services could only screen 10s of compounds at a time so this company was ground-breaking in its approach but had to create a market for its services.
Challenge
The company needed to gain the trust and recognition of the leading global pharmaceutical companies and convince the industry of the benefits of high throughput ADME screening coupled with PK prediction technology. Companies who regularly used ADME outsource providers wanted high reproducibility, low standard error, compatibility with established screening protocols and fast turnaround.
The company had developed solubility and permeability assays but needed to gain regular business and expand its services in order to meet customer needs. There was deep skepticism surrounding PK prediction technology and those that had adopted it were large pharmaceutical companies doing it all in-house.
Solutions
1. Create a New Brand of Preclinical ADME/PK Services
We created a distinctive brand of ADME service offerings. Coupled with clean photography of the company’s laboratories, this gave a corporate identity that evoked innovation and efficiency. It was used throughout their website, presentations and sales materials.
2. Industry Feedback Forum
At the Annual Drug Discovery Technologies Conference we held an invitation-only industry forum in order to engage the target market. We invited a select group of industry leaders from the conference attendee list to discuss the current and future needs of the industry. We asked them about the priorities for new screening assays, the role of PK prediction capabilities and key requirements that they had regarding data deliverables – in return for a small honorarium. The feedback was used to develop the company’s new services.
3. Marketing Campaign With Strong Emphasis on Education
Account managers at the company had noticed that the same questions arose time and again when they had delivered the ADME data to clients. The industry forum had also highlighted the need for accessible educational material to help discovery teams make good decisions from the data. As a result, we created the first ever guide to preclinical ADME “All You Ever Needed to Know About ADME But Were Afraid to Ask”.
We developed a marketing campaign to include education workshops at leading industry conferences to build on the success of the ADME guide.
4. Establish Credibility Through High Quality Validation Data
Pharmaceutical clients are always conservative and cautious when it comes to adopting new technologies or new service providers. We made sure that throughout website, product sales sheets and slide presentations we included clear and consistent validation data on known drugs alongside publication references wherever possible.
5. Flexible Business Model for Delivering PK Predictions
By making it easier to adopt the technology, through “pay per prediction” or bundling together high throughput screening with PK prediction data we were able to attract early adopters of the technology. They recognized its value in helping them to make decisions from their in vitro ADME data. The company’s PK prediction capability helped to further differentiate the company from its competitors who either provided simulation technology or screening services but not both.
6. Consistent and Clear Sales Support Materials
We equipped the entire sales team and account managers with the same set of sales materials, trained them to answer the most frequently asked technical issues and enabled them to present the company effectively. We developed an interactive web-like presentation tool which delivered a polished introduction but also allowed the flexibility to delve into more technical detail to answer client’s questions as they arose.
The Outcome?
Since implementing the product development, marketing and communications plans the company’s annual turnover increased from £150K to £2.7M in 2005, a Compound Annual Growth Rate of 156%.
