An antibiotic with targeted activity against respiratory pathogens that does not affect bowel flora for the treatment of community-acquired pneumonia.
Using Target Product Profiles in Your Market Strategy
Our Target Product Profiles qualitatively predict the market potential of a drug fulfilling a key unmet
need. This information is critical for evaluating the impact of clinical attributes on physician prescribing
of emerging agents, whether the emerging drug is your own or a competitor’s. Examples of how to
use the information you will find in this report are highlighted below:
• For companies who are developing a drug with some of the characteristics we are testing, our
survey results reveal the standards that surveyed physicians expect the remainder of the drug’s
clinical profile to meet. Our analysis begins to uncover physician-expected drug attributes as well
as acceptable trade-offs in emerging therapies. Our primary research with practicing physicians
includes this emerging therapy’s anticipated patient share, projected use by line of therapy, and
forecasted sales.
• For companies that already have a drug launched for the indication in question, our data and
analysis show the impact an emerging drug would have on their brand’s market. Not only does our
research reveal which existing brands would be replaced by a drug meeting the Target Product
Profile, but it also clearly outlines whether any drugs in the pipeline will meet the criteria laid out
by physicians to challenge the existing sales leader. This knowledge gives existing brands the
information they need to protect their share, either through new clinical trials aimed at end points
physicians say are critical differentiators or by aggressive marketing of brand attributes that
emerging agents will not be able to beat.
• For companies looking to enter a disease through licensing or acquisition, the challenge of sifting
through tens or hundreds of early-stage candidates can be daunting. Our Target Product Profiles
can quickly show business development teams the clinical attributes that are unique versus
products already on the market, and our primary research with physicians quickly identifies likely
share and market potential to give a first glimpse at valuation. Because all of our Target Product
Profiles are designed to be attainable within the next decade, our research can be a fast and
efficient way to whittle the field of potential licensing candidates down to the most valuable few.
Report Contents
The Target Product Profile reports are divided into two sections. The first section, “Etiology and
Pathophysiology,” offers a high-level view of the genetic and environmental causes of the disease
under study, as well as the subsequent symptoms and clinical effects that result. This section is
intended to give the reader a clear view of the physical and biochemical pathways that are known, or
suspected, to be causative to disease onset or progression. These pathways, therefore, are common
targets for drug therapy; where possible, we identify the molecular targets against which current or
emerging drugs act.
The second section, “Target Product Profile Summary,” begins with an overview of the drug
development landscape and the attributes on which investigators are focusing. Based on this
analysis, as well as the clinical end points that practicing physicians say are most influential in their
prescribing decision, our analysts define a key unmet need that could be addressed within the next
ten years. Our Target Product Profiles are a set of quantified performance measures against key
clinical end points and attributes that physicians build themselves. Our analysis of physician-desired
attributes identifies areas of potential trade-offs versus those attributes that are either expected in
new agents or are fully satisfied by current therapies. This section concludes with an analysis of highprofile agents currently in the pipeline (“Competitors to Watch” and “Emerging Product Profiles”).
Using surveyed physicians’ estimates of these agents’ usage as inputs, our analysis integrates our extensive knowledge of the competitive landscape and non-clinical market hurdles to determine the
market potential of these agents and their threat to current brands.
Additional Information
Target Product Profile Methodology
Our Target Product Profiles are made up of two physician-defi ned profiles that highlight physicians’
expectations of emerging therapies in terms of how much better or worse the therapy performs
relative to a comparator drug on key measures of efficacy, safety and tolerability, and delivery. The
profi les also provide physician insight on estimated uptake and use (i.e., patient share) of drugs
matching the Target Product Profiles as well as key drugs already in the pipeline.
Interviews with key thought leaders are used to identify a key drug development opportunity that is
realistic and obtainable within the next ten years. To complete the profile of a product that is able to
fulfill the key drug development opportunity and determine the product’s potential uptake, we conduct
two surveys for every disease we cover, each with at least 60 U.S. physicians who have large clinical
practices.
The first survey asks physicians how they would expect a therapy fulfilling the key drug development
opportunity to perform on various measures of efficacy, safety, and delivery. To qualify physicians’
willingness to accept varying trade-offs in efficacy, safety, or delivery, price points above and below a
comparator therapy (generally the sales-leading agent in the disease) are used. Price is used to force
physicians to make choices between must-have drug attributes and acceptable trade-offs. These
prices do not necessarily refl ect the potential cost or reimbursement of a novel agent fulfi lling the key
drug development opportunity. With these price points in mind, physicians are asked to profile two
theoretical therapies:
• “Minimal Acceptable,” defined as a therapy that satisfi es the key drug development opportunity
being tested and is priced lower than the comparator drug.
• “Major Achievement,” defined as a therapy that satisfies the key drug development opportunity
being tested and is priced higher than the comparator drug.
All physician survey responses are averaged together to create the two final Target Product Profiles,
each of which has clearly quantified performance measures against effiacy, safety, and delivery end
points.
The second survey presents these two Target Product Profiles to a new set of at least 60 physicians
and asks for their opinion on the market potential of each profile. Survey results reveal both Target
Product Profiles’ market potential in terms of prescription patterns (how many patients physicians
would consider prescribing the theoretical product profiles), the line of therapy such theoretical
products would be used, and which current drug(s) the theoretical products would replace.
The results of each of these surveys are presented and analyzed in the Target Product Profiles
section of this report.
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