Tag : life science business

Trust and Risk

Carlton Hoyt 9:23 am , December 14, 2011

Trust is extremely important in life science business relationships (and business relationships in general). I don’t have to ask you to take my word for it, though. According to the sentiment of more than 80 life science manufacturers and distributors who took our 2011 life science distribution survey, trust is the most important factor in distribution relationships according to distributors, and the second most important factor according to manufacturers. It’s not difficult to imagine that trust would be attributed similar importance in other types of business partnerships as well. Despite this, so many companies and individuals approach business relationships with distrust.

Companies often lack an appreciation for the fact that in order to build trust you need to give trust, and giving trust involves assuming some business risk. Even some that understand this still approach partnerships with minimization of risk given top priority. Maintaining the example of distribution relationships, many manufacturers will insist that they get paid up-front for the first few orders. Likewise, many distributors worry that the manufacturers are going to take their money and run.

All of this over-sensitivity to risk needs be put aside in order for trust to be built. Companies need to understand that there are unknowns in dealing with companies that they have not dealt with before, and either take steps to mitigate the risk that do not destroy trust (for example, using neutral third parties as references) or at minimum be willing to share the risk and come to reasonable compromises in the interest of developing what are at the time very young business relationships.

Much of the lasting attitude that will permeate the relationship is built in the early formative period when the relationship is still being defined. This attitude can have a definite effect on the success of the relationship, even in the long-term. You don’t want to start in a position of negativity and then have to put in extra effort to establish a good relationship with your business partner (if a company’s culture allows for such distrust initially, they will likely not take the later actions necessary to mend the relationship anyway). Any given person is far more likely to help a friend than an acquaintance. If you start on good terms you can get an early emotional “in” and you’ll already be one step ahead in building a successful business relationship.

One last piece of advice – don’t let your lawyers get in the way.

"Looking to establish successful life science business partnerships? Want to get more out of your company’s current business relationships? The strategic and business development professionals at BioBM help life science companies develop relationships that meet their long-term goals and contribute to the success of all parties involved. Send us an e-mail and let us know how you want to improve your business relationships."

Attorneys vs. Business

Carlton Hoyt 2:04 pm , October 5, 2011

Last week my father, who is a real estate broker and an attorney, was telling me about a real estate deal that he was working on. The buyer and seller had initially been in relatively good agreement but the seller’s attorney continuously advised his client to take an increasingly risk-averse position, thereby making the deal more one-sided and threatening it entirely. This reminded me of another conversation that some of us on the Life Science Distributors group on LinkedIn were discussing: how many large manufacturers (and this applies to large distributors as well) often have heavily one-sided distribution agreements that minimize their risk but fail to consider their partners. It was mentioned that such agreements are often drafted by attorneys.

My father made a very astute statement: “Attorneys seem to have forgotten the realities of business in favor of minimizing risk for their clients”. While there are exceptions, and there are also certain situations in which extreme caution may be justified, the idea of the statement is too-often true. When attorneys get involved they often do not have a complete understanding of the business environment and / or the situation relevant to a particular business deal. This applies across almost all industries and markets, and life science research tools are no exception.

Whether the issue at hand is distribution agreements, licencing deals, partnerships, service agreements, or just about any other contractual and / or negotiated agreement, remember to take your lawyers advice seriously, but don’t let them overrule the basic rules of business. Almost any deal requires a little bit of give and take, and focusing too strictly on risk reduction can ultimately scuttle what would otherwise be a highly lucrative deal. When your life science company deals with its attorneys, value their advice, but don’t forget the rules of business in doing so.

"Looking for an expert life science deal-maker or business developer to help grow your business? Contact us to confidentially discuss your needs and how we can help you achieve your goals."

Clinical Trials Guru Interview

biobm 1:19 pm , October 3, 2011

Dan Sfera & Don Walters from TheClincialTrialsGuru.com recently interviewed BioBM Principal Consultant Carlton Hoyt about a wide range of topics spanning life science marketing and R&D funding to his background and what led him to pursue life science business and marketing. You can watch the full interview below.

News 1:19 pm , October 3, 2011

Slowing Global Economy

Carlton Hoyt 10:16 am , September 29, 2011

You see it on the television, you read it in the newspapers – the global economy is slowing. The IMF has cut GDP estimates for the world as a whole to 4.0%, highlights the threat of renewed recession in the US and EU, has curbed estimates on China slightly, and projects a sharp drop-off in India’s economic growth compared to last year. Other economies are projected to show sharply weaker growth as well. Huge public debts also threaten austerity in major economies. All in all, the global economy is in a very precarious position … but what does that mean for you, the manufacturers and distributors of life science research tools?

Overall, the global life sciences research market will likely contract, and we are already seeing supporting evidence of such. The proposed 2012 NIH budget is trimmed by a modest 0.6%. I expect European and Japanese life science R&D spending to be trimmed by a similar amount. While many developed economies are struggling with debt, investments in research don’t seem to be high-priority chopping block items. What about the massive $100bn+ pharmaceutical and biotech research and development budgets? Well, while one may reasonably postulate that people in developed economies are losing their health care along with their jobs and this would lead to falling revenues, that does not seem to be the case. In fact, the largest threat to pharma / biotech seems to be generics, but even then global sales growth is still projected to be positive, albeit diminished. That being the case, don’t expect private-sector R&D to grow, but it shouldn’t shrink either. Overall, we will likely see only a very modest contraction in overall life science R&D spending. That’s good news.

The bad news is that this cuts the “growth” out of the market, although this is worse news if you’re a large company or an established player in your market segment. These companies rely more on growth in the market in order to grow themselves (at least organically), and companies with a high market share or those that have seen their market share plateau are more likely to see a sales contraction from a contraction in global life science R&D funding. Smaller companies that have plateaued will need to assess their technology and competencies in order to develop plans for value-added innovation in current markets and / or expansion into new markets in order to sustain growth, or else they will simply contract with the market. Larger companies with more cash will likely use M&A to achieve growth. Look for them to acquire early-stage companies with very promising high-impact technologies as well as established small-to-mid size companies that have high-quality product lines that are complimentary to their own.

Contrary to general consumer behavior, we are unlikely to see a move to lower-cost products within the research tools market. Less research funding generally means less labs or smaller labs, not across-the-board cuts in funding to all labs. In other words, the dollars spent per researcher will likely be roughly the same, but the overall number of researchers will decrease, spreading the contractile pressure fairly evenly across all laboratory products instead of driving researchers to lower-cost products. Practically speaking, this means that manufacturers and distributors who sell products that compete on price will feel the squeeze just as bad, if not worse since many of these “generic” or “commodity” type manufacturers do not have the technology and R&D capability to expand into new markets. As these companies have thin margins and already focus on efficiency, thereby not leaving much more room to squeeze out additional efficiency, they will feel the pain of any contraction quite acutely if they haven’t been saving cash.

On the other hand, small and mid-size companies that rely more heavily on technology adoption for growth will likely still have strong performance, as companies will still want to put their research dollars into tools that make research faster, better, and easier. These companies don’t rely so much on market growth since they are, in effect, building sub-markets and carving out new space. While their effective “ceiling” may be decreased, this will likely affect them only minimally since they are still in the growth phase and have not come close to reaching their maximum potential. One exception to this could be those companies that manufacture high-value capital equipment that is most often purchased to upgrade from an older instrument and / or technology. Look for sales in these products to decline somewhat as organizations look to decrease their R&D overhead by decreasing funding to core facilities and putting off large, non-critical purchases. With few exceptions, however, scientists will continue to adopt new technologies.

Another way a contraction will affect the life science research tools market is by decreasing marketing ROI. With an overall decrease in spending, there will be more marketing dollars chasing fewer customers, so marketing ROI will likely decrease by a few percentage points, especially since new players in the market will likely continue to enter given its size and comparative stability, and also to seize opportunities created by new technologies. While sales forces can shrink to demand, the channels through which marketers need to reach customers do not shrink, and this puts a fairly strict limit on how much a marketing budget can contract without negatively affecting sales.

A contracting global economy certainly will not effect the research products markets as much as it will the consumer markets, and this is very good news for those in the space and for the future of biomedical research a a whole. Nevertheless, any slowing or contraction presents risks. By understanding the situation and the likelihood of future possibilities and preparing for what may lie ahead, life science companies can plan for and mitigate those risks to help ensure continued success.

"Are you ready for a contraction or other market disruptions? With a troubled global economy, now is as good a time as any to plan for scenarios which may negatively impact your life science business. If you’re not sure of how you can protect yourself from downside risk, ask the experts at BioBM Consulting. Our business consultants can help you develop a strategy and plans-of-action that will cushion your company from macroeconomic hardships beyond your control."

Blog / Marketing Strategy 10:16 am , September 29, 2011

Acquisition vs. R&D

Carlton Hoyt 7:25 pm , July 14, 2011

There is a recent article in Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News discussing large life science tool companies and how recent growth (and by “recent” I mean the past half decade or so) of these large companies can be largely ascribed to acquisition. David Green, the president of Harvard Bioscience, was quoted as saying that “The average organic growth in the life science instrumentation industry, with the exception of sequencing-based businesses, remains a modest 3–6%.” I can only presume he’s speaking about public companies, which are generally much larger than the average company and therefore more constrained in terms of their potential growth.

This, I argue, is not surprising at all. Larger companies are simply better suited to buy than develop. Given that various granting agencies (for example, the NIH) pump billions upon billions of dollars a year into life science research, wouldn’t it be expected that the more common option for large companies would be to eat up the newly formed companies that are so often a product of that investment?

Now this is not the case in all fields. The technology that moves forward some sectors of the life science tools market are far less frequently products of grant-funded research. In these sectors, R&D spending is necessary and there will often be fewer start-ups to acquire. Companies in these sectors may be limited to the number of viable acquisitions possible or reasonable and therefore must find ways to grow organically.

Regardless of the sector, this is good news for small life science companies founded on solid, promising IP that are looking to get bought out. It seems there are plenty of behemoths with deep pockets who are willing to throw plenty of money around for the right opportunity. However, for those who don’t have that killer technology, whose product portfolio doesn’t fit excellently into that of a much larger company, or who simply wish to remain independent, you have no option but to grow organically. That, my friends, is a topic for another day.

"Looking to get bought out or wondering if it would be a good option for your company? Simply looking for ways to drive organic growth? Call BioBM Consulting and speak with one of our expert life science business consultants. We can analyze your situation and collaboratively help you figure out the best options for you."

Blog / Marketing Strategy 7:25 pm , July 14, 2011

Distributor Selection

Carlton Hoyt 5:30 pm , June 23, 2011

Maximizing distributor performance allows bioscience companies to efficiently grow revenues. As promised in our post two weeks ago on improving distributor performance, we wanted to provide some information on life science distributor selection. After all, part of getting the best performance from your distributors is selecting the right ones in the first place.

Geographic Fit

The first and most obvious thing that gets considered when selecting a distributor is geographic fit and territory coverage. Just because a distributor serves a whole country or region doesn’t mean that they have good coverage of the territory. For example, some distributors perform inside sales to the entire territory but only have outside reps for some of the territory. Many times there is a trade-off between coverage and specialization and / or coverage and focus. The companies with more complete coverage, more reps, a greater reach, and a more powerful brand are often the largest companies which almost always have very large and broad product offerings. A company like VWR has hundreds of reps globally, but are those reps really going to be thinking about selling your product line, or will it just get lost in a sea of life science equipment and consumables? Also, remember that distributor territories don’t have to be synonymous with “countries” – you can have more than one distributor in a country and still maintain exclusivity, you just need to subdivide the country into smaller territories. Companies approaching large countries like China or the United States seem to forget this and instead get caught up in an often non-ideal situation of having one company be the sole representation for a large country.

Product Fit

So you know your territory, but do you know who has the capability to sell your product within that territory? For more technical products, you may need a distributor who has the experience and educational credentials to effectively sell such equipment – especially if you don’t have an office in roughly the same time zone to provide on-demand sales support. Will your equipment require demonstrations or installations? Better choose a distributor with a solid outside sales force, or at least one who is willing to travel to get the job done. You’re also likely to be faced with a choice of working with distributors who sell competing products and therefore are familiar with your market and applications and may have a reputation for selling products like yours, or working with a distributor with no competing products and therefore only has your products to offer as a solution. There is no simple answer for this – it needs to be determined on a case-by-case basis.

Other Considerations

Are certain products generating most of their revenues? If so, which ones? They may offer a wider variety of products than they actually sell. If they have a few key products that generate most of their revenues, they may be hesitant to divert effort into selling other products. Be sure that your product line doesn’t become a “me too” in their offering.
Does this distributor really want to sell your products? This may be the most important question, and the answer can be based on many factors including all those which we have already discussed. Even if a distributor seems like a great fit, if they’re not motivated to sell your products, they are likely to perform well below expectations. If a distributor is willing to take on your line but isn’t motivated to sell your products, should you work with them anyway? The easy answer is “no”, but this ignores one key question: could you make them motivated? There are tactics, including contractual terms and distributor management techniques, to do so.
Would there be a significant imbalance of power in the relationship? I always hesitate to recommend a much larger and more powerful distributor to my clients unless they are very motivated to sell their line and show it in the terms of the distribution agreement or they have a close contact in a relevant position at the larger company. If there is an imbalance, chances are that they’ll feel free asking you to give and give, but won’t feel obliged to return any favors.
Do you even need to work through a distributor? Could a partnership with another manufacturer, probably one selling complimentary products, serve you even better?

Regardless of the topic at hand or the region in question, there are good distributors and bad distributors. Some distributors will embellish their capabilities and you have to do your homework to make sure that they have the capabilities they state and that they’ll fulfill their promises. Don’t hesitate to ask to speak to a potential distributor contacts at other suppliers, or even reach out to other suppliers on your own in order to get feedback on their performance and / or validate their claims.

If you life science company sells through distributors, the performance of those distributors will be a large part of the success or failure of your company. By identifying and forming relationships with distributors who have the necessary capabilities and are committed to a mutually beneficial relationship, you’ll be well on your way to growing your international sales.

"Are your distributors performing the the level that they should be? Do you have holes in your distribution network and need them filled to grow your sales? You don’t have to pull your hair out over the details of distributor selection. BioBM Consulting offers life science companies like yours business development services which identify and connect you with distributors who are most likely to help lead your company to international success. BioBM also provides distributor management solutions which will help maintain great relationships with your best distributors and grow the performance of the others by implementing best practices. Don’t let a mediocre distribution network stunt your company’s growth. Contact BioBM Consulting and let us help your company thrive globally through optimized distribution."

Blog / Distribution 5:30 pm , June 23, 2011

Improving Distributor Performance

Carlton Hoyt 6:12 pm , June 7, 2011

Any bioscience company that sells through distributors is familiar with the problem: some distributors just don’t pull their weight. I spoke with a global laboratory equipment company recently that has about 100 distributors globally, excellent territory coverage, and no direct sales so all of their sales come through distributors. They told me that the 80/20 rule is in full effect with their distributors – 80% of their sales from 20% of their distributors. Even more extreme, over 50% of sales came from their top 4 distributors! They put in a great deal of effort trying to convert poorly performing distributors into well-performing distributors, but they were doing so in a very cost and time intensive manner and with moderate success at best. Admittedly, this is an extreme example, but Imagine how much a company like that would stand to gain from improving the performance of even some of their distributors.

If you sell through life science distributors, you are probably in a similar situation. You most likely have good distributors and not so good distributors (and probably some downright bad distributors), and wonder what you can do to improve distributor performance. We hear that same question over and over, and I thought I would share a few tips on how to get more from your distributors and grow global sales while improving your distributor relationships and building trusted long-term partnerships.

One of the most common factors in poor manufacturer-distributor relationships is poor communication. Note that poor communication can be both a cause and a symptom of poor distributor performance. Many companies set up distributor newsletters or make calls to them to ask open-ended or performance-based questions, and while these efforts are better than nothing, they rarely address core problems and often lead to one-directional communication. To improve your distributor relationship, and thereby improve your distributors performance, your communications should provide value to your distributors. One way to do so is to build a social-like platform for discussion and dissemination of materials and information. Customizable, easily built solutions from companies like Ning, SocialGo, or Groupsite provide inexpensive solutions that will not only get you communicating more with your distributors, but will also get your distributors talking amongst each other. Just remember when implementing any solution for communication – if your solution is not easy to use, distributors won’t use it. Chances are they’re not going to go out of their way to communicate with you.

Another common factor for poor life science distributor performance is motivation. In order for your distributors to sell your products, they have to want to sell your products. Are you properly rewarding distributors? Are you providing sufficient training and support? Are demo-intensive products eroding distributor ROI? Perhaps they have another product line which is their “bread and butter” and they are hesitant to place focus elsewhere? Lack of motivation to sell could be caused by many reasons, and each will have a different solution. Talk to your distributors one-to-one, build a relationship based on trust, then make use of that trust to get straightforward answers from them as to why they’re not selling. Sometimes the problem isn’t the distributor at all but other factors pertinent to a local or regional market that may appear to be problems with a distributor. Regardless, trusted distributors with whom you have build a good relationship will give you straight and honest answers.

There is also the chance that a distributor you have selected is not right for your company and / or product lines. If your product doesn’t fit their expertise, if the sales techniques required don’t fit their sales methods, if they offer too many competing products, etc., there may just be an irreconcilable difference. Sometimes there just isn’t anything you can do, and you need to be able to recognize that and move on.

Regardless of the reason, if a life science distributor has poor performance and isn’t improving (or you have reason to believe they won’t), you need to replace them. In future posts, we’ll discuss distributor selection, contractual terms that can be used to help motivate distributors up-front, and ways to replace distributors that will minimize disruption to your business.

"Are you looking to improve your distributors’ performance? Do you have any problems with under-performing distributors? Do you want more efficient and effective ways of communicating with your distributors? Whatever your distributor-related needs may be, BioBM can help. Our on-staff life science business consultants are experts in distributor management, distributor selection, business development, and all aspects of bioscience product distribution. Contact us by phone or fill the form below for a free consultation and we’ll show you how we can help drive revenues through improved distributor performance."

Blog / Distribution 6:12 pm , June 7, 2011

Success in Product Development

Carlton Hoyt 6:30 pm , May 2, 2011

Implementing and obeying go / kill criteria will ensure that your life science company has a better allocation of resources. For companies, success in life science product development does not mean completed development of a single product, or even successful commercialization of a product. Likewise, triage of one product development project does not equal failure. Successful product development lies in product development operations which best contribute to the success of the company. For any life science product development project, or for product development operations as a whole, projects must be evaluated for four key factors: value, strategy, balance, and resource availability.

Value is the most obvious factor by which to evaluate a product development project. There are many metrics by which to measure project value, such as net present value (NPV), expected commercial value (ECV), Productivity Index (PI) and a host of others. Our favorite metric is slightly different – We take the NPV of expected future profits, divide that by the NPV of project costs, then multiply by the probability of success. Note that for projects that are in progress, only future costs are considered. Money already spent can’t be recovered, so it is effectively irrelevant. Value, while very important, should not be the only thing considered. If your company is evaluating projects by value alone, you are likely making some poor decisions and not realizing it.

Strategy is crucially important in selecting life science product development projects. Companies must determine how the product will fit in with their greater strategic direction. A project that does not fit with the company’s strategy can shift focus away from more important areas, both within and outside of the context of product development.

Bioscience companies should also have a balanced portfolio of product development projects. Balance comes into play in many forms: long-term projects vs. short-term projects, projects with higher probabilities of success vs. those with higher potential returns, projects that are a close fit with corporate strategy vs. projects that are more loosely aligned, products that will protect markets vs. products that aim to expand the company’s market, etc. Too little product portfolio balance, either by too little diversity or too much, can increase risk.

Last but not least, life science product development must take into consideration resource allocation and availability. If an otherwise attractive project will hit a bottleneck because of insufficient resources, it may be more effective to begin another project first which better addresses current and projected resource availability.

In order to be successful, companies need to look at life science product development at a high level, ensuring that not only is each product right for the company, but all product development projects taken as a whole represent the best mix of projects for the company in terms of value, strategy, balance, and resource allocation. While many companies will rush to declare success based on individual projects, lasting success will come from a product development selection process that takes into account multiple factors and is geared to improve the company’s performance over a long term.

"Would you like more confidence that your company is undertaking the correct projects? Would you like to implement a system that will help you improve your bioscience product development pipeline? If the answer to either of those questions is yes, then look no further. BioBM’s experienced consultants have the product development and project management experience you need to bring more certainty and better decision making to your product development project selection processes. Contact us and we’ll get started."

Blog 6:30 pm , May 2, 2011

Leveraging a Weak Dollar

Carlton Hoyt 3:31 pm , April 26, 2011

In one of the first posts on our new site we discussed some ways in which life science tools companies can take advantage of a weak dollar, but with a decidedly U.S.-centric focus. With the dollar index hitting a three-year low last Thursday and not far from an all-time low, we decided to revisit the topic, this time with an international focus. While a weaker U.S. dollar is most often a positive for U.S.-based manufacturers, it can pose problems for international companies that want to export into the United States. While there is no way for a company to circumvent the exchange rates, a very weak dollar may present a good time to act on certain cross-border opportunities for some non-U.S. life science companies.

The U.S. Dollar Index (5-year chart)

For non-U.S. distribution companies, the exchange rate probably doesn’t seem so bad. A cheap dollar can be a good time to stock up on inventory from U.S. suppliers. Manufacturers need to look a little harder for a silver lining as their products become effectively more expensive in the U.S. Now, however may be a time to look to the U.S. to source parts, etc. in order to decrease manufacturing costs. If you are willing to bet that the dollar is near a local minimum, you may even want to prepay for items that are sourced within the United States.

Ever think about starting operations inside the U.S.? Now might just be the time. One-time expenses will now be relatively cheap and operating costs will currently be low, allowing your company to mitigate the large capital outflows necessary to begin operations. (shameless self-promotion warning: looking for a way to less expensively start U.S. operations?) Speaking more generally, for non-U.S. companies, now is the time to execute dollar-denominated contracts.

The dollar may not stay weak for long. With expected budget cuts by the U.S. Government and tightening of fiscal policy by the Federal Reserve (including the end of the second round of qualitative easing) imminent, it is likely that the dollar will stabilize at the very least, meaning we are likely near or at low levels. If your bioscience company have a future expense that will be in dollars, you may realize significant savings by pushing that expense forward and executing now.

"Want some insight as to how your life science company can benefit from a weak dollar? Regardless of where your company is based or operates, you can contact BioBM and a professional life science business consultant will help you design and execute customized strategies to make the best of global markets."

Blog / Distribution / Marketing Strategy 3:31 pm , April 26, 2011

The Lost Art of Go / Kill

Carlton Hoyt 6:08 pm , April 12, 2011

Great ideas are precious things. They are the fuel driving innovation, the sustenance of progress, the energy that powers success. Not all great ideas are so great in practice, however. In the life sciences, as in all industries, ideas that are put into action need to be periodically re-evaluated to make sure they are working out to be as good as we thought they were. If they are not, then we would be best off scrapping them and focusing our energy and resources on something else … but life science companies seem to have a very hard time doing so, and this inability is to their detriment.

For your information...

Want to learn more about go / kill decision making? You can read about the stage-gate project management technique, from which go / kill is based, on Wikipedia.

The area where this lack of go / kill is most prominent and has the largest effects is product development. Life science product development projects have well-defined milestones and easily tracked metrics, yet go / kill criteria are usually nonexistent and when they are they are most often poorly defined and almost never strictly obeyed. Put simply, not having such criteria is a poor business practice and not obeying them is a poor business decision. Go / kill criteria are defined based on the risk at any point in time in comparison to the revenue potential. This information, which may be subjective but is still based on the best knowledge and information at the time the criteria is created, tells us whether we are likely to achieve our desired returns at any stage-gate (the point at the project when the go / kill decision is made) if we move forward with the project. If you are unlikely to achieve the desired returns, and resources would be better allocated elsewhere then the kill decision should be made, yet it very rarely is.

It is, to some extent, easy to understand why companies so infrequently utilize stage-gates successfully. Kill decisions are hard to make. In our business culture, killing a project is often interpreted as the project failing and this can cloud the business judgment of those on the team who do not want to appear to have been on a failed project. In practice, recognizing the need for a project kill and implementing it should be commendable, a gesture that the project team are willing to put the greater good of the company as a whole. Unfortunately, this rarely happens. No one ever handed out a “best project kill decision of the year” award. Kills are not seen as an achievement but project completion is, so most often projects push on even in the kind of adversity that makes desired returns extremely unlikely.

Other types of endeavors can benefit from stage-gate type go / kill decision making. For example, marketing campaigns can be periodically re-evaluated for ROI determination. If the ROI is not up to par, the campaign can be killed in favor of another which has a greater likelihood of success. Distributor / supplier relationships can be subjected to go / kill, and because of easily quantifiable metrics these decisions can be very easily gauged. Go / kill gates can even be easily and beneficially applied to the continuation of existing products. There are a multitude of other areas where life science companies can benefit from such gates as well.

Ensuring that resources are allocated to areas providing the greatest benefits is a cornerstone of a successful company. Ongoing projects and processes have a need to be periodically reevaluated to determine if they should be continued or “killed” in favor of other more promising endeavors. Despite this, life science companies rarely use go / kill decisions. Implementation of stage-gates and proper adherence to go / kill criteria will help life science companies ensure that that their resources are more optimally allocated and utilized.

"Does your life science company use stage-gates? Would you like to better implement go / kill criteria to improve your company’s resource allocation? Do you use go / kill criteria or stage-gating but find that it is poorly adhered to? BioBM’s team of business consultants can help you properly design and utilize go / kill criteria and implement staging to improve business results across a multitude of areas. If you would like to start improving your decision making, call or e-mail BioBM today."

Blog / Marketing Strategy 6:08 pm , April 12, 2011

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