Home Insights How can emerging biotechs strengthen their journey to commercialization?

How can emerging biotechs strengthen their journey to commercialization?

As emerging biotech companies prepare for launch, it’s essential to focus not only on hitting their key early stage milestones, but also prepare to maximize their future commercial potential.

From assessing the future landscape of the industry to evaluating and prioritizing key opportunities, emerging biotechs can make strategic moves to strengthen their commercial assets when the time comes.

Our Global President Jason McKenna and Executive Vice President Dean McAlister at Inizio Biotech recently sat down with Raman Sehgal to discuss these topics in greater depth on his podcast Molecule to Market.

Listen to the conversation >

The current biotech investment landscape

Last year, the biotech investment boom reached its peak, with investments reaching a plateau when compared to growth seen in the past couple of years. As a result, capital allocation is now being highly scrutinized, particularly with regards to non-clinical trial spend.

The race to find treatments for the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in an investment boom in biotechs from 2020 to 2021. After the global vaccine rollout, investors began to move their focus away from biotech into shares that would benefit from the re-opening of the economy as lockdowns were lifted.

However, the biotech investment cycle is cyclical, and trends indicate that rather than focus shifting away from their investment, they are simply reaching the end of the cycle before picking up again.

This slowing of investment momentum has in turn resulted in biotechs rethinking their strategies to find more innovative ways to appeal to investors, predominantly by staying on the pulse of the latest segments of therapeutic demand.

Which development areas are attracting investment?

As the aging population continues to grow, so does the demand for therapies to treat diseases associated with aging.

Chronic diseases, cancers, rare diseases and the continuing impact of COVID-19 all demand the development of more biotech innovations. Companies working to bring treatments such as cell and gene therapies, oncolytics, COVID-19 treatments and more to patients, are uniquely placed to ensure that many diseases that may often be fatal for an individual are no longer a death sentence.

As a result, investors will be looking ahead to the huge potential of these innovations with such an evident value, not only in terms of human impact, but also in terms of distribution, promotion, and on the service side as biotechs look to maximize their assets.

How can emerging biotechs make themselves attractive to investors?

There are many points in the biotech journey when preparing to launch as a fully commercial entity where emerging companies must take decisive action.

Not only must these companies meet the current development areas of focus, but they must also demonstrate to investors the sustainability of their company and their readiness to launch.

Phase II is a critical juncture when emerging biotechs must begin to prepare for commercialization. This phase involves several processes, including:

  • Developing a scientific communication platform
  • Patient journey mapping
  • Value pricing and access work

Many biotech companies are also late to start their investments into commercializing their brand or the company’s assets. In many cases, this work doesn’t begin until Phase III, but biotechs can start these conversations with their potential strategic partners as early as Phase II.

Collaboration with strategic partners – especially those that meet their highly-specific needs – should be a key aspect of these early stages when forward planning for later milestones.

By working with their partners as early as possible, biotechs can begin promoting their value and preparing to move their drug products further down the development journey to make themselves more attractive to potential investors.

The biotechs that take these early opportunities will place themselves in a much stronger position to move into commercialization when the time comes.

Finding the right partner

Working with the right strategic partner as early as possible in the emerging biotech journey is essential to maximizing the full value of an asset. By factoring in these partners as early as possible, biotechs can remove the pressures of scrambling for support when a study is about to mature.

Specialist partners such as Inizio Biotech are strategically positioned to help emerging biotechs maximize value creation milestones along the clinical development and commercialization journey, and have a keen understanding of the specific challenges and opportunities these organizations face.

Learn more about Inizio Biotech >