Our capabilities

A.T. Kearney's Pharmaceutical & Healthcare practice includes a network of worldwide professionals. In addition, our pharmaceutical and healthcare experts team up with functional (service) experts within A.T. Kearney to provide the best cross-industry expertise.

Our expertise is built on extensive consulting experience across a range of pharmaceutical and healthcare organizations – both public and private.

Commercialization strategy development and implementation
As consumer preferences, regulatory policies, competitive dynamics and partnership choices in the marketplace evolve, it is critical for companies to have a robust commercialization strategy for products in the pipeline. We have worked with many clients to develop and implement commercialization strategies aligned with the organization’s vision and mission, which result in significant top and bottom-line growth. Our capabilities include:

• Portfolio strategy
• Due diligence
• Market entry strategy
• Market access and stakeholder management
• Pricing and reimbursement assessment
• New product launch planning and support
• Strategic partnership development
• Discount strategies

Market access
Accessing pharmaceutical markets is becoming increasingly challenging for drug manufacturers as healthcare systems become more sophisticated. The emergence and proliferation of Health Technology Assessment bodies, combined with tighter health budgets, more focused procurement and a wide range of other payer strategies, to name a few, means that pharmaceutical companies can no longer rely on targeting prescribers as the main model for driving sales. Those companies who develop a deep understanding of the funding and payer systems in place in each country will be able to devise successful market-access strategies, which will maximize revenues in each market across all stages of the life-cycle. Our capabilities include:

• Deep understanding of payer models across European countries
• Therapy area assessment
• Due diligence
• Pathway analysis
• Holistic market access strategy
• Implementation planning and tactics
• Health system wide-view and understanding

Supply chain strategy and performance improvement
We work with pharmaceuitcal and healthcare companies and ministries of health across a broad range of supply chain issues. By applying our expertise across the breadth of the supply chain spectrum, we have made significant bottom-line improvements for our clients. Our capabilities include:

• Supply chain strategy and roadmap
• Supply chain assessment
• Manufacturing and distribution network design
• Manufacturing “4-wall” improvements
• Working capital reduction
• Distribution/transportation cost reduction
• Distribution strategies (e.g., direct-to-pharmacy, direct-to-patient)

Customer strategy development and implementation
We work with a range of healthcare companies to help them develop powerful insights about their existing and potential customer base. We assist them in designing and implementing a tailored strategy for different segments of customers. Our capabilities include:

• Customer profitability assessment
• Customer segmentation and strategy development
• Customer behavioral modeling
• Customer needs assessment

Marketing strategy and effectiveness
We work closely with our clients to develop a marketing strategy for their on-market and new products. We also help our clients understand the effectiveness of various marketing programs and build a marketing approach best suited for their product/market portfolio. Our capabilities include:

• Business unit strategy
• Product/Market strategy
• Marketing research process redesign
• Sales model design/re-design
• Marketing effectiveness improvement

Productivity enhancement
By leveraging our cross-functional expertise, we bring a uniquely insightful set of ideas for improving organizational productivity and making a significant improvement to our client’s bottom-line. Our capabilities include:

• R&D process improvements
• G&A assessment and cost reduction
• Organizational structure redesign
• Cycle-time improvements for key business processes (e.g., order-to-cash)
• Business process redesign
• Shared services improvement