Choosing an indication is choosing what not to do
An immunology strategy team needed to prioritise indications across the Spanish landscape.
Prioritisation of this kind usually turns on three things at once: how much unmet need there is, which patient segments carry it, and whether the thing is feasible to pursue.
Those pull in different directions. The largest unmet need is not always the most feasible, and portfolio strategy is the discipline of holding both in view.
Clinicians and payers, because feasibility involves both
The work was interviews with key opinion leaders and payers across the immunology landscape in Spain.
Clinicians describe where the unmet need is and which patient segments carry it. Payers describe what market access would take, which is where feasibility gets decided.
Assessing them separately would have produced two lists that did not meet. Assessing them together is what allows a single ranking.
Healthcare market research aimed at a portfolio question has to be comparative from the start. Each indication was covered on the same basis so the answers could be set against each other.
A ranking the strategy team could actually defend internally
The research assessed unmet need across the landscape.
It identified the priority patient segments carrying that need.
And it assessed feasibility, which is what stops a prioritisation exercise from becoming a wish list.
The strategy team came away with an evidence base for portfolio choices and indication prioritisation, built from what clinicians and payers said rather than from internal conviction.
