Launch Excellence: Navigating Post-COVID Challenges for Successful Pharmaceutical Launches

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IQVIA Belux

Mar 27, 2025

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Launch Excellence: Navigating Post-COVID Challenges for Successful Pharmaceutical Launches

Your Challenge:

In the post-COVID era, pharmaceutical launches are facing unprecedented challenges. Compared to their pre-COVID counterparts, recent launches are underperforming due to evolving launch environments that are not adequately reflected in strategy and planning. This discrepancy means that market realities at launch can differ significantly from the initial planning stages, particularly in areas like brand positioning.

Key Insights:

Critical Pre-Launch Preparation: Success hinges on meticulous pre-launch preparation and planning. The first six months post-launch are crucial in determining the success trajectory of a product. Historical data shows that significant improvements in market share after this period are rare, underscoring the importance of thorough preparation.
Coordination and Alignment: A common issue is the lack of visibility, coordination, and alignment across functions, leading to siloed planning and suboptimal launches. Missed or delayed key activities and milestones can have critical knock-on effects, further complicating the launch process.
Complex Launch Environments: Both internal and external launch environments are becoming increasingly complex. A robust and tailored approach is essential to navigate these complexities and maximize the asset's value. Identifying missing or delayed activities and pressure-testing evidence, planning and launch strategy are critical to optimizing the value proposition and reflecting the latest market dynamics.

Our Approach:

We partner with you early in the pre-launch phase to identify potential gaps and "I wish I knew" (IWIK) moments, allowing for timely corrective actions. Our approach involves two key steps:

What You Can Expect:

Tailored Launch Plan: A detailed and comprehensive plan leveraging inputs from the IQVIA Launch Excellence framework, launch experts, functional experts, and therapy area experts, in collaboration with your cross-functional team (Marketing, Medical, Price & Reimbursement Managers, etc.).
Status Updates: Regular updates on the progress of planned milestones, identifying what is completed, in progress, or yet to be started. We also distinguish between questions that can be answered with in-house data and those requiring external data sources.
Pressure-Testing: A thorough evaluation of your launch activity planning to ensure you are focusing on the right activities and executing them correctly, thereby ensuring timely execution of key activities for launch success.

For a deeper understanding of the key factors for launch success in Belgium, refer to our White Paper: Launch Excellence in Belgium – Understanding Key Factors for Pharmaceutical Success.

For more information, please contact Deborah Alberts at Deborah.alberts@iqvia.com.

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