Protecting the Product Pipeline

Managing each step, from initial innovation to product hitting the shelves

As a Canadian life sciences or pharmaceutical company, you know that managing the product pipeline is one of your biggest responsibilities. The road that most health-related products follow — from research and development and patent acquisition to regulatory compliance and finally commercialization — is long and full of pitfalls. Canadian players are especially vulnerable to pipeline jams, as our country's regulatory regime makes it hard for both large and small companies to reap the benefits from innovation.

Anticipating and combating threats to your product pipeline require targeted strategies. Here are a handful of touch points that Canadian life science and pharmaceutical companies need to keep in mind:

• Reputation management: This involves more than just timely recalls of individual products that have proven to be defective. It also means managing the industry's reputation as a whole, ensuring that the general public knows that the sector remains focused on its original purpose — improving the health and wellness of people — and not just on increasing profits. Failure to deal with any number of threats to the sector's reputation usually results in loss of sales and even more government regulation.
• Further cost containment: Gaining access to capital is hard enough in the life sciences sector, so you want to control costs at every stage of the product pipeline. This means finding and implementing new efficiencies whenever possible.
• Outsourcing and supply chain management: Innovation is important not only in science but also in business. Finding ways to enhance talent through outsourcing whenever applicable and managing your supply chain are vital steps to keeping new products moving through the pipeline.

How we can help

We offer a full range of services involving regulatory compliance, tax and human resource management that can help you move products through the life sciences pipeline more smoothly. Our Performance Improvement practice has experienced professionals ready to help you enhance your operations and identify new pipeline opportunities.