Overcoming Challenges in the Current Biotech Landscape

Planning Challenges

Planning is a concrete and, in most cases, mandatory step to both successful funding and effective execution. Based on factors like medical value, differentiation, and the commercial opportunity for your biotech company, you should develop both a high-level value story and a detailed plan that will help you drive the company forward. Use the story and the plan to convince stakeholders, both internal and external, that you’re doing the right thing and approaching it in the right way.

Every day, your team follows your precise plan like a map. If anything changes in the environment or in operations, you need to measure the impact on the plan and adjust your assumptions. Otherwise, investors will see the lack of coherence in your plan during their due diligence.

To develop a successful plan and avoid the dangers of “winging it,” consider these questions:

• What is my number one weakness? If you’ve already begun presenting your company to potential investors, they will challenge you on your biggest problem, and you’ll hear the same question about it over and over again. You must address this weakness in your plan.
• To whom am I presenting my plan first? The answer defines the initial style and priority elements to focus on. Ultimately, you’ll present the plan to many stakeholders, and you’ll need to tailor your style of communication depending on the audience and the objective.

Internally to company leaders: Are we all convinced that we need a plan, and are we ready to invest time to build it? This leads to a follow-on question: are we internally aligned on the value story and differentiation?

For more insights on planning for biotech leaders, continue reading Planning: Why It’s Worth the Time for Biotech Companies in the Alira Health website.

Fundraising Challenges

Fundraising and planning are connected by the issue of trust. Investors must trust you if they’re going to put money into your company. But building trust is a long-term process, and you probably need funding soon. You’ll experience a tension between the time it takes to earn an investor’s trust and the point at which you have access to funds. You can gain that trust by showing them your plans, demonstrating that you are clear about where you want to go and the steps you will take to get there. Your plan should show, in detail, how you’ll use the funds to reach the next value inflection point. Planning is key to fundraising because it’s how you show investors that they can trust you.

Another fundraising challenge is the complexity of biology. Science constantly evolves and the available information always grows. The question for company leaders is how to present a complex biological element in a 30-minute pitch to investors. It’s important that the management team tells your story effectively. You need to understand that you’re speaking into a crowded space, and you must clearly communicate your value proposition to get in front of an investment committee. One solution to this is to anticipate when you’re going to need the money and start having conversations with investors long before that point.

For more on overcoming fundraising challenges faced by biotech leaders, continue reading Fundraising: Best Practices in a Challenging Environment on the Alira Health website.

Execution Challenges

Finally, your plan is the backbone of your execution. And execution will help you raise funds because it’s a great way to measure whether you are delivering on what you promised. Many investors will hear your pitch but hold off on investing until you’ve run a successful clinical trial and can provide them with actual data, not just theories and assumptions. From an operational and technical standpoint, you need to think about when you can share data, even if it’s preliminary. That will move you towards your next inflection point and allow you to make a stronger case for additional funding.

It’s also important to roll with the punches. Your management team needs to coordinate cross-functional interactions, and frequently check with the plan to confirm that your teams, both separately and together, are making progress. You must continuously validate the assumptions you made when developing your plan. Most importantly, identify red flags that appear during execution as soon as possible. When it comes to clinical trials, you face considerable risk and high expense. You must prepare to pivot from your original plan and anticipated timelines as things change or if certain tasks don’t go according to plan.

Learn more about overcoming execution challenges by reading Execution: How Biotechs Can Plan and Run Successful Clinical Trials on the Alira Health website.