Translating a Strategic Forecast into an Operational Most Probable Forecast 

Case Study (US)

The Challenge

A top ten (10) pharmaceutical company’s first in class induced constipation product had a strategic forecast underperforming by ≈ -35%.

The brand had a robust patient base, generous affordability program, favorable payer/access profile, optimized salesforce size, robust deployment structure, and above-industry norm direct-to-consumer advertising investments, to support the forecast.

Despite these factors, the brand team sought to identify drivers of the forecast variance. Inizio Engage enlisted Propensity4 to:

• Uncover drivers of the plateauing launch growth trajectory (12-24 months post-launch)
• Diagnose gaps in the forecast causing potential over-prediction
• Ascertain the true brand potential and estimate an achievable forecast

​Our Solution​

Propensity4 Bottom-up Forecast Approach:

• A combination of market research, Real-World Evidence (RWE) Anonymous Patient Level Data (APLD), and promotion sensitivity data utilized to map, size, and forecast the market and brand.

Research Integration:

• Research emotive insights linked with secondary quantitative data to provide an integrated solution across patients, providers, and payers.

Solution Benefits:

• Connects specific patient types to the scientific value of the product.
• Aligns patient emotive willingness to adopt with physician adoption propensity, relative to speed, intensity, and persistency.

Adoption Spectrum Mapping:

• Ensures structured cadencing and sequencing requirements are in place to achieve the forecast.

The Results​

Insights:​

• The quantified strategic forecast was only about 7.5% above the true operational forecast potential of the brand.
• Forecast Achievement Phasing was accelerated by about 4-12 months due to the strategic forecast lacking bottom-up visibility of patient and physician adoption sequencing.
• Significant disconnect between the Total Addressable Market (TAM) and Serviceable Addressable Market (SAM) size compared to the true penetrable patient population base.
• Notable disconnects between emotive drivers of the penetrable patient population base and direct-to-consumer (DTC) strategic patient activation messaging.
• Core patient base is lethargic and dependent on OTC constipation meds, leading to ineffective DTC advertising and impacting forecast ramp-up.
• Absence of dynamic targeting for the next waves of adopters, resulting in an overly weighted strategy towards depth of prescribing among existing writers rather than expanding the writer base.

Business Outcome/Impact:

Impact of the Propensity4 engagement were multiple fold.  In addition to improving forecast transparency and connectivity to the brand strategy, operations, patient activation messaging and DTC spend effectiveness, the engagement enabled:

• Identification & Implementation of Leadership Aligned Business Performance KPIs
  • New Prescription Writers || Rewriting || Average Writing

• Real-World Evidence (RWE) Anonymous Patient Level Data (APLD) Measurement of Level & Extent of Available Patient Penetration Performance KPIs
  • % Penetration OTC Cyclers

Achieved Growth Trajectory of 94% month-on-month accuracy with ~96% overall accuracy.