Strategic positioning

The “specialty medicine” branch of a pharmaceutical laboratory, which includes all the products intended for hospitals, wanted to develop its “beyond the pill” service offer for doctors.

We interviewed a panel of potential customers to understand their expectations of the services being considered, prioritized them to select the three most relevant in terms of value to customers but also in terms of the legitimacy of the pharmaceutical company.

For each selected service, we defined a strong value proposition, which allowed us to align the development of the new service with our client’s product, overall strategic positioning, as well as give meaning to its field teams.

A French region asked us the following question: how can we define a strategic positioning in health that generates value for the region’s players, is appealing to attract new activities and even new companies, and differentiates from other existing health clusters in France? To do this, we diagnosed the region’s strengths and weaknesses, carried out a benchmark of similar clusters in France and internationally in order to both differentiate ourselves from them and identify good practices to be replicated, and led a multi-stakeholder workshop at the regional level.

In the end, we came up with an original market positioning, combined with ambitious regional economic development goals, and co-constructed a roadmap shared with all the players involved.

The development of autonomous systems has been a strategic aspect for the aeronautics market for several years.

Alcimed assisted the management of an aeronautical equipment manufacturer in the choice of the best strategic positioning for autonomous vehicles. To do so, our team identified current technological developments, carried out a positioning study of direct competitors and other players along the value chain, and assessed its customers’ expectations and level of maturity in terms of autonomy.

Our exploration also looked at the limits from a regulatory and certification point of view to finally define a concrete action plan enabling our client to become a key player in tomorrow’s aviation solutions.

We assisted an industrial client in the development of its antimicrobial protection technology on a new market. Until then used in a variety of markets (food processing, textile industry, automotive, …) and for many applications, our client wanted to position its technology in the hygiene and health sector, finding a strategic positioning that would allow the company to establish itself in this new market.

After a detailed mapping of the value chains of the new targeted sectors and a competitive analysis, our team identified and co-selected with our client priority market segments, then tested the market receptivity, needs and expectations of prospects.

This comprehensive analysis allowed our client to decide on a strategy to prioritize its market approach: which segment, which sub-segment, in which order of priority,… and to build a value proposition and a commercial approach to differentiate itself from the competition.

Our team supported a pharmaceutical company in the definition of the strategic positioning for a clinical stage asset.

We investigated the unmet medical needs in a complex therapeutic area of interest by interrogating KOLs in the US and in Europe to understand the extent with which the asset could help HCPs and patients. Additionally, we performed an analysis on the potential threats establishing a product on an adjacent indication could pose.

In the end, our team provided our client with a bold recommendation on the strategic positioning of the product to maximize its value proposition while mitigating the risk of competition.

Alcimed worked with a healthcare player to develop its positioning and business case for using a recombinant human enzyme in the treatment of heart failure.

Across the US, EU, and Japan, we determined the competitive landscape for our client’s protein and performed scenario planning on peak sales and net present value. Our assessment was done through an in-depth investigation into heart failure and the unmet medical need from current treatment strategies.

In the end, our team provided a detailed accounting of pre-clinical products in current pipeline of competitors and estimates on potential revenue, to provide the client recommendations on whether to move forward into subsequent animal studies. The exploration of this topic assisted our client in prioritizing which programs in their pipeline to advance for further development and in defining its strategic positioning.

Alcimed assisted an international biotechnology player in estimating potential revenue models corresponding to the identified extended markets for two diseases, to be better prepared for future discussions with potential investors.

We conducted extensive research on both diseases to build the potential revenue models of the two extension markets. Scenario planning of peak sales for the extension markets were performed via interviews with key opinion leaders in both disease fields and analysis of best available data.

On this basis, our team was able to assess our client’s financial opportunity and risk associated with both extension markets and provide insight on what strategic positioning to determine and the key factors needed to achieve success.

Alcimed assisted an international software manufacturer to understand the pricing models they can employ to define their strategic positioning and be competitive in diagnostics algorithm for digital pathology.

To help our client understand the current value proposition of players in the field and define the ideal value proposition for their algorithm, we investigated the unmet needs and receptivity to the potential digital pathology offer. This investigation was conducted across the US and EU and targeted a representative sample of varied laboratories and key stakeholders for discussions.

Through this investigation, our team delineated the current pricing practices and the likelihood that particular pricing strategies would either encourage or hinder the adoption of new digital pathology algorithms. Our client’s short- and long-term product enhancements were also defined in order to implement their preferred pricing strategy.