A five-step approach for optimising established brands' portfolio value

Established brands represent the majority of portfolios across pharma’s global affiliates that are often neglected, with revenue and profit growth untapped. In the coming period, pharma should witness a complete transformation as exclusivity rights to 569 medications valued at $278 billion (2022 sales) are set to expire by 2030.¹

While many organisations default to passive management of these brands, forward-thinking companies are adopting systematic frameworks to maximise the value of their established brands portfolio.

Understanding the strategic context

Before implementing any approach, companies must understand the scope of the challenge. Established brands, typically defined as products approaching or past their loss of exclusivity date, face steep revenue declines as generics and biosimilars enter the market. The challenge is particularly acute now, as new launches – often targeting specialised therapeutic areas or rare diseases – struggle to replace the revenue streams of existing mass-market medications.

The global nature of pharmaceutical marketing demands a more nuanced approach, as each brand’s potential varies by region, therapeutic category, and local market dynamics. A systematic approach that can accommodate this complexity while delivering consistent results is required, and discussed below.

The five-step approach for established brands optimisation

1. Analyse
The foundation for successfully optimising an established brand lies in comprehensive brand analysis. This involves analysing the brand portfolio across geographic regions, therapeutic areas, and market dynamics. Companies must evaluate current market share, competitive landscape, and prescriber loyalty patterns. This analysis should also consider broader market trends, pricing dynamics, and potential regulatory changes that could impact brand performance.

The Analyse step helps companies identify which products warrant additional investment and which might be better candidates for cost optimisation or divestment. This evidence-based approach prevents both the underinvestment in promising assets and the overinvestment in brands with limited potential.

2. Strategy
Post analysis, companies must develop clear, actionable strategies for each brand. This involves defining objectives, determining target market segments, and establishing realistic performance metrics. Strategy development should include scenario planning to account for different market conditions and competitive responses.

A critical aspect of this phase is ensuring alignment between strategic ambitions and execution capacity. Companies must honestly assess their internal capabilities and resources, determining where gaps exist and how they might be addressed. This assessment informs decisions about resource allocation and capability development.

3. Classify
This step involves determining the optimal operational model or archetype for each brand based on its potential and resource requirements. This decision point represents a critical juncture in the five-step approach, as it shapes all subsequent execution decisions.

Companies can choose from fully outsourced models, where third parties manage most commercial activities; internal management, where existing teams maintain brand responsibility; or hybrid approaches that combine internal oversight with external execution. Each model has distinct advantages and trade-offs that must be evaluated against brand objectives and market conditions.

4. Tailor
Next, we translate strategy into actionable plans across all aspects of brand management. Capability planning must address sales approach, marketing activities, financial controls, and patient support programmes, to name a few. This phase requires detailed specification of resource allocation, timing of key activities, and performance metrics.

Critical considerations include the balance between traditional and digital channels, the role of medical affairs, and the approach to stakeholder engagement. Capability planning must also establish clear governance structures and decision-making processes to ensure efficient execution.

5. Execute
The final step focuses on deploying solutions and capabilities while maintaining flexibility to adapt to changing conditions. Success in this phase requires robust monitoring systems to track performance against objectives, clear feedback mechanisms to identify issues quickly, and processes for continuous optimisation.

Companies must establish strong project management capabilities and clear communication channels between all stakeholders. This enables rapid response to market changes and ensures that resources continue to be allocated optimally as conditions evolve.

Implementation challenges and success factors

While the five-step approach provides a methodology to established brand optimisation, its successful implementation requires careful attention to several critical factors.

Companies must first ensure strong cross-functional alignment, as optimisation often requires seamless coordination between commercial, medical, regulatory, and manufacturing teams. This alignment becomes particularly crucial when implementing hybrid operational models or transitioning between different commercial approaches.

Companies must plan for market access strategies throughout the five-step approach and integrate during execution, as established brands face increasing pricing pressure and evolving reimbursement landscapes. This includes maintaining relationships with payers, understanding evolving pricing dynamics, and developing value propositions that remain compelling even as products mature.

The development of appropriate metrics and key performance indicators represents another crucial success factor. Traditional commercial metrics often need adjustment for established brands, particularly when objectives shift from growth to optimisation. Companies must develop balanced scorecards that consider not only financial performance, but also operational efficiency, market share stability, and resource utilisation.

Organisations also face significant challenges in maintaining commercial infrastructure while optimising costs. This often requires creative approaches to resource sharing, territory alignment, and support allocation. Companies must carefully balance the need for dedicated support against the imperative to maintain profitability, often leading to innovative organisational structures and service delivery models.

Enabling success through advanced capabilities

The effectiveness of this five-step approach depends heavily on several key enabling capabilities. Advanced analytics and forecasting tools support better decision-making throughout the process, from initial assessment through ongoing optimisation. Dynamic resource allocation systems enable companies to adjust investments based on performance and changing market conditions.

Understanding physician prescribing patterns and brand loyalty becomes particularly crucial in the execution phase. Even with reduced promotional activity, some established brands maintain strong physician preference, creating opportunities for targeted optimisation efforts.

Operational excellence is also essential in managing established brands. Companies must develop capabilities in areas such as:

•    Flexible commercial modelling that can adapt to changing market conditions.
•    Efficient shared services that maintain quality while reducing costs.
•    Streamlined compliance processes that ensure regulatory requirements are met without excessive overhead.
•    Agile decision-making frameworks that enable rapid responses to market changes.

The future of established brand management

The integration of digital capabilities is reshaping established brand management fundamentally. Beyond basic automation, companies are developing sophisticated approaches to:

•    Predictive analytics for market response modelling
•    Automated marketing mix optimisation
•    AI-driven customer engagement prioritisation
•    Real-time performance monitoring and adjustment

The global evolution of healthcare systems influences established brand management approaches. Value-based healthcare, increased focus on real-world evidence, and evolving regulatory requirements create both challenges and opportunities. Companies must ensure their framework can adapt to these systemic changes while maintaining operational efficiency.

Platform approaches to pharmaceutical commercialisation are gaining prominence, with companies exploring ways to leverage shared commercial infrastructure across portfolios of established brands. This creates opportunities for economies of scale while maintaining brand-specific optimisation strategies. Future success will likely depend on mastering these platform capabilities while maintaining the flexibility to address individual brand needs.

The role of data analytics continues to expand, moving beyond historical analysis to predictive modelling and automated decision support. Companies are investing in capabilities that enable real-time monitoring and adjustment of commercial activities, creating more responsive and efficient optimisation approaches. This trend toward data-driven decision-making is likely to accelerate as artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies mature.

As the industry approaches a significant wave of patent expirations, the adoption of a systematic framework to address established brand optimisation is critical. Organisations that can implement a systematic approach while building the necessary supporting capabilities will be well-positioned to maximise value from their established brand portfolios, creating a strong foundation for sustainable business performance.

References
1.  Fierce Pharma webinar: Maximize value for established brands.

About the authors

Michel Auvillain is practice leader of commercial managed services at IQVIA. He has held sales and marketing business unit roles in companies such as Pfizer, Bristol Myers Squibb, and J&J, sales management both at national and international level for almost 17 years. He joined IQVIA through an offshore/onshore experience of commercial analytics outsourcing in India and provided support to clients in implementing an analytics services centre dedicated to forecasting, advanced analytics and reporting. Auvillain is actively working on establishing a new delivery model with a partner to support established brands within a large pharma.

Matthew Walsh is senior director of CTM & value strategy at IQVIA. A consulting and corporate strategy leader with over 18 years’ experience implementing client-specific go-to-market strategies across numerous industries, he has more than five years’ experience developing these strategies as a GTM leader within IQVIA’s enterprise and commercial solutions business units. Walsh brings a data-driven, customer-oriented approach toward client management as part of the GTM and value engineering practices he manages. He has a passion for positively impacting life sciences and strives to do so by developing the right strategies for his clients to achieve the value-added returns to grow their business and continue providing value to the patients they serve.