A life science venture capital fund was contemplating investing in advanced plasma product opportunities being developed by a biopharmaceutical company. Alacrita was commissioned to provide a reality check on the commercial opportunities on offer.
Alacrita first conducted an internal assessment of the prospective differentiators of the novel therapeutics, their target product profiles and subsequent target indications. This was followed up with primary research in the form of structured interviews with Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) in the main target indications for both products, involving clinicians in the UK and USA. The specific issue investigated was the set of product attributes that would induce clinicians to switch from existing products to a new one, including understanding the issue of pricing, unmet needs in current products’ specification/quality, data support, and format or handle-ability concerns which the new product might address. Other key issues were the products’ place in treatment, clinician views on patient eligibility and off-label use. Further to this, Alacrita considered the clinical development options for each offering, including requirements for a clinical proof-of-concept trial to demonstrate efficacy, patient populations, patient inclusion criteria, clinical end-points and size of clinical trials.