Life Sciences.
Helping clients accelerate sustainable and inclusive growth across the life sciences industries.
Fijishi helps biopharma companies fulfill their mission of delivering life-changing medicines and therapies, and take advantage of new technologies—including digital, data, and advanced analytics—in order to unlock innovation and bring new medicines to market faster. Biopharma companies turn inspiration into innovation, discovering new medicines that improve and save lives—and they’re in the midst of transforming how they do it.
The global pandemic has pushed digital, data, and analytics to the forefront of the industry, shortening the time it takes to develop new medicines and bring them to patients. Next-generation capabilities are driving more rapid and effective manufacturing and supply chains. They’re also enabling the swift redesign of networks, the creation of new commercial models and patient-engagement ventures, and the pursuit of new value-creation opportunities through M&A. Fijishi’s biopharma consulting experts work with companies to accelerate all of these changes, building a foundation for strong growth and sustained value creation.
How do we help clients?
Generics and Biosimilars
Helping companies capture opportunities across the value chain for generics, branded generics, established products and biosimilars, and forging connections among industry stakeholders.
What we do
We work with all participants in the generics industry, including independent companies, the generics divisions of large corporations, active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) manufacturers, specialty pharmaceutical companies, private equity, wholesalers, pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), and payors. Our work has covered a wide range of topics, including strategy, operations, marketing, R&D, organization, due diligence, and post-merger management. We offer benchmarking and diagnostic tools in R&D, manufacturing and cost structures.
Medical Affairs
Helping clients to transform their medical affairs function into the company’s third strategic pillar alongside R&D and commercial.
What we do
Over the last 15 years, Fijishi has worked with pharmaceutical and biotech companies to shape their medical affairs function. The pharmaceutical industry operates within a rapidly changing environment, and medical affairs is becoming increasingly integral to success. To transform medical affairs accordingly into a company’s third strategic pillar (alongside R&D and commercial) is a vision that will require significant upgrades to how the function operates today.
Our experts draw from deep expertise in medical affairs—both serving individual clients and leading cross-industry initiatives—to help the medical affairs function fulfill its potential to improve patient outcomes and experiences.
Specifically, we focus on the following areas:
- Innovating evidence generation – Leading rapid-cycle, integrated evidence generation across HEOR, RWE, Phase IIIb/IV, and all other data, supported by microanalysis to tailor information to the needs of individual patients and improving patient lives across the product life cycle.
- Accelerating access to treatments – Clearly articulating clinical and economic value (including data) to build trust with partners and accelerate access to treatment to ensure that the right patient gets the right treatment at the right time.
- Transforming and personalizing medical engagement – Upgrading physician and patient decision making by engaging providers, patients, and others with tailored information that improves outcomes, supported by a reimagined insight-generation process.
- Stepping up internal medical leadership – Providing strategic medical direction to the organization that is steering resources for maximum medical impact, injecting new capabilities, and upgrading performance at scale to create medical leaders who drive and shape the future of medical affairs and the company as a whole.
Operations
As competition intensifies and payors restrict reimbursement, more pharmaceutical, biotech, and medical product companies are trying to maximize profits through operational improvement. But their efforts are often complicated by the increasing complexity of the healthcare landscape, such the shift of manufacturing to low-cost countries and the need for more intricate supply chains to meet growing demand in emerging markets.
Fijishi has years of experience in all aspects of pharmaceutical operations, allowing us to help clients identify opportunities for revenue enhancement, efficiency improvement, and cost reduction throughout the entire production cycle. Over the past five years, we have served pharmaceutical, biotech, and medical product clients in more than 250 operations engagements, giving us a detailed understanding of all industry trends and challenges. We take a hands-on approach to working with clients, creating practical strategies that generate bottom-line impact.
To sustain long-term improvement, we emphasize helping clients build their internal capabilities, providing tailored training programs for all organizational levels. We also have developed a set of tools and databases specifically for pharmaceutical operations, focusing on benchmarks in manufacturing cost, productivity, supply chain, purchasing, procurement and quality performance.
Research & Development
Helping clients build the R&D capabilities needed to drive innovation, improve productivity and performance, and develop successful portfolio and asset strategies.
What we do
Our R&D clients include major pharmaceutical companies, medical device manufacturers, biotechs, and clinical research organizations. Our work, which spans all major therapeutic areas, focuses on:
- Driving innovation - We can help transform a company's corporate culture and R&D infrastructure to meet changing industry needs, or support efforts to attract, motivate, and mobilize the best talent. We use our insights to help companies develop innovative products that offer substantial benefits over existing therapies, allowing them to overcome hurdles to regulatory approval and payor reimbursement.
- Improving productivity and performance - We have multiple strategies for enhancing client's productivity and performance. For instance, we can help them access new technologies and innovation through various R&D financing and partnership models that minimize cost and risk. We also facilitate approval and reduce development timelines and costs by helping design clinical strategies that maximize the chance for a successful approval with the best possible label. Our efforts often involve assisting companies with organizational issues (e.g., helping them determine the most efficient structure post-merger, etc.). Since we understand the changing vendor landscape and we offer global reach and expertise, we can also assist companies in identifying the right outsourcing/off-shoring opportunities and in capturing greater value from emerging markets.
- Developing successful portfolio and asset strategies - For resource allocation, we help clients allocate their clinical research budgets and focus on the most promising products. With existing drugs and devices, we show clients which therapy areas, diseases, or products should receive priority. Most importantly, we apply novel approaches to maximize the value creation potential of each individual pipeline asset. For instance, we can help clients identify compounds that will provide more value in established markets or generate demand in rapidly growing emerging markets. We also help clients identify and execute business development opportunities, including in- and out-licensing deals, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, and innovative multi-party transactions that improve productivity.
- Optimizing medical and regulatory affairs organization and strategy - We help Medical and Regulatory Affairs divisions to implement best practice organizational set-ups and build the capabilities required to meet the expectations of external shareholders. We also support clients in their pursuit of product safety and clinical quality excellence.
Commercial
Helping clients maximize commercial value by assisting with product launch, marketing, sales, and market access.
What we do
Our extensive experience serving life sciences firms in all therapeutic areas has given us a deep knowledge of global commercial trends affecting the industry, including reimbursement issues. In helping clients navigate through this turbulence, we focus on four areas:
- Product launch - We have helped drive product launches for the most successful drugs on the market and have expertise in all therapeutic areas. Although launches are often complex, with products entering the market in multiple countries simultaneously, we can keep development on track. To help clients prepare for future launches, we focus on capability building during our studies and have created the Launch Academy training program.
- Marketing - We support clients in creating high-impact strategies that maximize value, using customized tools. We also have detailed market data for all major geographic regions, including emerging markets (e.g., information on trends in India and China).
- Sales - We help clients reach their full sales potential while maintaining efficiency. Our efforts span the entire organization—we can help train and restructure sales forces, work directly in the field to provide coaching, maximize value from back-office services, develop strategies to accelerate short-term sales, and assist with company-wide commercial transformations. We also have databases with information that can help companies maximize sales force effectiveness.
- Market access - We have a deep knowledge of global market access issues. Many payors are now reluctant to pay for new products, especially if they are more expensive than existing therapies. To overcome this challenge, we work with clients to develop compelling real world evidence in support of their drugs. We also assist clients with payor negotiations, helping them build trust-based relationships while simultaneously obtaining optimal reimbursement terms. In addition, we have supported several clients in the design and implementation of value-added services for patients, such as patient loyalty programs and medication co-pay cards.
Biotech
Biotechnology funding, deals, and IPOs reached the highest levels worldwide in 2020, with venture-capitalist (VC) funding for biotech companies up more than 80 percent year-over-year, and IPO values increasing by more than 180 percent. The next waves of science and innovation are on the horizon, and the bio-revolution is well underway.
However, value creation is not guaranteed. Increasing complexity—scientific, supply chain, access, etc.—raises the bar for high-quality talent and successful execution. For example, less than 50 percent of biotech launches meet expected forecasts, and independent biotech companies launching by themselves the first time are typically less successful than experienced launchers.
Fijishi helps biotech companies across the entire value chain, from early-stage companies getting initial funding to established companies launching into international markets. We also drive transformations by bringing together the capabilities needed to help organizations grow and thrive in the digital age.
What we do
- Portfolio and platform strategy and asset optimization - Maximize R&D platforms and portfolio value with unrivaled expertise in portfolio strategy, clinical development strategy, study design optimization, and clinical-operations acceleration
- Launch and go-to-market - Assess launch readiness and design differentiated go-to-market models, such as access, commercial, and medical while developing commercial organizations and building roadmaps with clear value propositions in market and competition
- Operations - Build the manufacturing plant of the future, integrate digital and analytics to achieve world-class productivity and quality
- Strategic partnerships - Support strategic partnerships by evaluating portfolio, value-chain strength, geographic trends, and strategic fit that inform partnering options and craft value-proposition stories
- Future-proof organization - Develop the organization of the future by considering rapidly evolving and growing organizational changes in external competition and commercial environments
- International expansion - Define the launch model for international markets based on an evaluation of the addressable patient population by market, and by assessing commercial and organization requirements
Digital Health and Health tech
Healthcare innovation is happening at a rapid pace. While there’s immense demand for digital health solutions, there is a need to scale the positive impact digital health solutions can have. Health technology continues to push the boundaries of how healthcare is delivered and has the power to create breakthroughs in understanding diseases.
Fijishi helps health tech businesses across the entire value chain, from start-ups in the initial stages of fundraising to established companies expanding into global markets. We also drive transformations by bringing together the capabilities needed to help organizations grow and thrive in the digital age.
What we do
- Business-building and scaling support - Our proven Leap by Fijishi methodology and global digital health hub help health tech companies rapidly and successfully build and scale business. The hub includes 15 digital assets, a team of 20 digital health specialists, and ten external partners and vendors who have been involved in building digital health businesses around the world
- Investing our people to build the next generation of healthcare innovators - Align with clients to ensure there are shared objectives and KPIs. We invest our human capital—our capabilities, databases, people, and tools—to help health tech companies scale and achieve high ambitions and share the financial risks and upsides with health tech companies from the start
- Portfolio strategy and asset optimization - Maximize R&D platform and portfolio value with unrivaled expertise in portfolio strategy, clinical development strategy, study design optimization, and clinical operations acceleration
- Launch and go-to-market - Assess launch readiness and design differentiated go-to-market models, such as access, commercial, and medical, while we develop commercial organizations and build roadmaps with clear value propositions in market and competition
- Operations - Build the manufacturing plant of the future and integrate digital and analytics to achieve world-class productivity and quality
- Strategic partnerships - Support strategic partnerships by evaluating portfolio, value chain strength, geographic trends, and strategic fit to inform partnering options and craft value proposition stories
- Future-proof organization - Develop the organization of the future by considering rapidly evolving and growing organizational changes in external competition and commercial environments