Pharma CI Conference 2024: Comprehensive Summary Report - Sedulo Group

Executive Summary

The Pharma CI Conference, held on September 25^th-26^th, 2024, brought together top leaders in life sciences to discuss pressing issues and trends shaping the industry. Competitive intelligence (CI) experts gathered to gain insights into the evolving landscape driven by regulatory changes, innovations in AI, and new market dynamics.

Key Takeaways and Trends

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA): Jocelyn Ulrich, PhRMA, described the IRA’s benefits and challenges. While it aims to improve drug affordability for patients, it will likely limit innovation for pharmaceutical companies and result in higher insurance premiums.
AI as a Central Topic in Competitive Intelligence (CI): Multiple sessions addressed how AI continues to evolve, though its full potential remains hampered by challenges related to accuracy and adoption. In a shift from 2023, AI was seen as requiring human support and guidance rather than replacing entire sections of the CI industry. AI is a useful tool that may enable CI professionals to do more, especially with secondary research, even in cases where budgets are tightening.
Growing Importance of CI within Organizations: Several sessions highlighted CI’s critical role in anticipating trends, aligning cross-functional teams, and influencing strategic decisions. CI helps companies detect emerging industry shifts and provides actionable insights that support clear Go/No Go decisions and ensure the success of new product launches. Primary research remains a clear area of value that is currently beyond the reach of tools like AI.

Major Themes

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)

Jocelyn Ulrich’s keynote on the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) highlighted its benefits and unintended consequences. While the IRA has improved drug affordability for patients, it has led to significant challenges for the pharmaceutical industry, including price setting, declining profitability, and cuts in innovation, particularly in oncology.

Positive Impact: Patients are benefiting from more affordable drugs.
Challenges: The pharmaceutical industry faces a projected $232 million loss equating to 79 new drug uses/indications due to the IRA’s “pill penalty,” leading to potential cuts in small molecule drug pipelines and a shift from oncology.
Broader Implications: Insurance options have decreased, and low-income individuals and seniors may face higher out-of-pocket costs.

Despite these reforms, underlying issues like PBM abuse, which continue to inflate costs, remain.

The Role of AI as an Enabler of Competitive Intelligence

While AI is revolutionizing many aspects of CI, several speakers agreed that nothing replaces the human touch in primary research and decision-making. This is a change from the 2023 conference, where speakers were more willing to explore the idea of AI taking over large portions of the CI industry.

- Slow Adoption vs. Increased Usage: While some panelists anticipated slow AI adoption in CI, Mary Ann Sarao noted an increase in vendors deploying AI tools across various functions.
- Susan Polanco Ipointed out that AI is only as valuable as the input quality of the data. High confidence in primary insights is crucial before they are integrated into AI processes to ensure reliable outcomes.
- Trust in Vendors: Several speakers stressed that pharma companies must trust vendors to use AI ethically and appropriately. Jennifer Preston noted that pharma companies are slow to adopt generative AI, but they rely on vendors to use these tools effectively.
- AI’s Current Capabilities
- Examples of AI Success:
  - AI excels in secondary research, web scraping, and secondary conference coverage.
  - Specific tools were discussed, which provide invaluable insights by comparing scientific abstracts with those using similar mechanisms of action (MoA). These tools help track timeline projections and model enrollment trends, allowing companies to benchmark outcomes and assess competitor innovations over time.
- Examples of AI Limitations:
  - Case Study – JNJ: Diana Gowe highlighted how JNJ has integrated generative AI from one of their vendors. However, human oversight remains critical due to persistent errors in AI-driven processes.
  - Errors in data input and “AI hallucinations” still present challenges in generating reliable insights.
  - AI still struggles with accuracy, landscape building, and forecasting.

The overall message across multiple sessions, panels, and speakers was that AI is transforming CI jobs rather than replacing them, requiring professionals to adapt to new workflows.

Competitive Intelligence Remains a Strategic, Evolving Pillar

Several speakers from various companies emphasized the evolving and crucial role that Competitive Intelligence (CI) plays within organizations. From anticipating industry shifts to harnessing AI effectively, CI has become essential in helping companies navigate complex business landscapes and make strategic decisions.

Key Benefits of CI Across the Sessions

Anticipating Trends and Early Warnings: CI helps detect emerging trends and red flags by analyzing company messaging and investments, ensuring organizations stay ahead of industry changes.
Cross-Functional Alignment (AbbVie: Bhat, Hughes, McDonald, O’Brien, Spirig Vertex: Kaniewski): Effective CI relies on collaboration with departments like medical and R&D, ensuring that insights are well-rounded and aligned with broader business objectives.
Demonstrating ROI (Bhat, McDonald): CI provides measurable value by delivering accurate predictions and insights that help avoid business risks and support strategic decisions.
Influencing Strategic Decisions (Madduri, Oza, Sharma, Stamper, Wang): This group emphasized CI’s role is not just to report data but to shape strategic choices by understanding where and when decisions are being made. Successful decision-making requires clear Go/No Go decisions and alignment across an entire portfolio for an effective risk assessment. New product launches were identified as the most pivotal moment for CI, as capturing early success sets the foundation for a product’s life cycle.

Other Topics

Primary Research’s Role in CI Success

(Chandiramani, Coulter, Morita, Rumancik) Primary research remains essential in identifying new market opportunities and understanding competitor moves. Despite AI advancements, primary research remains dependent on human involvement to engage with sources and real-world networks, ensuring accurate and actionable insights.

Life Sciences CI Survey Results

Sedulo Group presented the 2024 Life Sciences Competitive Intelligence Survey Report, providing valuable insights on the state of CI practices and trends in the life sciences industry. Based on data from 109 respondents from 90 different Life Sciences companies, the report identifies the real-world practices, budgets, and structure of competitive intelligence in the Life Sciences, Biotech, and Medical Device industries. The responses include a broad range of job titles, with 71% of respondents reporting over a decade of experience. The report also explores demographic data, allowing for comparison across company sizes. The second annual survey will begin in early 2025.

Delivering on KITs/KIQs vs Objectives vs Valued Contributions

Susan Polanco’s session focused on the essential role of Key Intelligence Topics (KITs) and Key Intelligence Questions (KIQs) in competitive intelligence and how they should extend beyond the CI function into every arm of a company. Polanco emphasized that collaboration across departments is central to developing effective KIQs that truly inform business strategy.

Cross-Departmental Involvement: KIQ development should involve input from marketing, market access, clinical, medical, R&D, and business development teams to ensure that all perspectives are considered and integrated.
Breaking Down Silos: Larger organizations often face inefficiencies due to siloed operations, where different teams work in isolation on their KIQs. This lack of collaboration can lead to misaligned objectives and missed opportunities.
Role of MSLs: Medical Science Liaisons (MSLs) also play an important role by reporting their findings to CI teams for verification, helping maintain a cross-matrix relationship that keeps all departments aligned.

Susan underscored the importance of a holistic approach to KITs and KIQs, stressing that effective CI requires breaking down organizational silos and fostering collaboration across all functions.

Conclusion

A clear theme emerged throughout the event: competitive intelligence remains vital to navigating the rapidly evolving pharmaceutical landscape. CI professionals must stay agile, leveraging human expertise and technological tools to deliver meaningful insights. As the industry faces new challenges and opportunities, those who effectively integrate cross-functional intelligence will be best positioned to drive innovation and strategic success. As one panel highlighted, CI can best influence key decision-makers by providing timely, actionable insights and understanding stakeholder needs.

About Sedulo Group

Are you looking to optimize CI’s impact on your organization’s success? We’re here to help. Sedulo Group offers a full suite of competitive intelligence, market intelligence, and strategy consulting services. By blending best-in-class primary intelligence was competitive strategy consulting, Sedulo arms clients with the insights and implications needed to outmaneuver and outperform the competition, maximizing their competitive advantage.