Pharma Insights 🩺

This is the talk show created by Platforce

to connect professionals
from the pharmaceutical industry

biotech, life science, and beauty

from all around the globe.

My name is Juliana Kreisel

and I'm so pleased to have you all here

in this episode

we will discuss the difference in the modus operandi

of corporations versus startups in Biotech,

Life Science, Beauty and the Pharma industry

We will chat

about how the market is tailoring their strategies

from brand awareness and client acquisition

to choosing the right CRM

and effectively approaching the HPCs

for this different types of corporation or companies

and as we're going to touch a lot of

a lot of different topics

we invite you

our attendees to write your questions down on the chat

so we can direct them to our specialist

and they will answer them for you

I will love to introduce

I introduce my co host for today

Mr Stefan Repin. Hi, Stefan.

He is the head of marketing here at Platforce.

We hope to bring

to feature today the discussion to our audience

and we and we inform you to make this uh

and we invite you to uh

this webinar

and to every single other that we will

be planning for the rest of the year.

So without any further delay

let me invite our first speaker for today

Doctor Yvette

Hi, Yvette, how are you doing today?

Hi, guys, I'm doing fine

Thanks for having me.

I'm really excited being here

W are so happy to have you with us.

We would love for you to give us

a little bit of introductions about yourself

Yeah sure. So I'm by chemistry expert

and had a chance to

get into full on pharmaceutical environment

regulated environment

and have been working for some big corporate companies

including Roche

and had a chance to work on wonderful projects

for different

you know

applications for medicines and such

and then afterwards moved on into startup companies

supporting startup

small companies

trying to make their way into the big pharmaceutical

biotech world

yeah and on that way

on that go, you know,

had nice stumbles

had nice success

bit of both

and I think just the combination of that

also kind of got me to meet you guys

and this is why I'm here

to kind of share lessons learned

and see what one can learn from each other.

Nice! We're so happy to have you here

so, as we said before,

this webinars give us the opportunity to network

and meet everyone from all around the globe

so thank you

thank you for taking the time

and then I would like to introduce

our second speaker for today

Martijn

How are you doing?

Hello folks

Good. Good to see you again

after a lot of preparations yes

Greetings from the Netherlands

Greetings from the Netherlands

It's finally good weather so I'm happy

Nice nice. Happy to hear that, Martijn

Do you want to introduce a little bit about yourself?

So our audience gets to know you

Of course of course yeah

My name is Martijn van den corput

I'm one of the co founders and CEO of OptInsight

I would say that we are the

the top leader in pharma and life senses regards

consent management with our services and solutions

a little bit of my background

and that was also the reason that I was attracted to

to be part of the panel is that

yeah I think I've now a working experience from

over 20 years and I worked for

large corporates in the beginning of my career

with all the

struggles and also was

part of building up

scale up company in the Netherlands in

professional services

where we have to

create a brand

from first day again after being part of IBM

so that was a yeah

that was a huge challenge

and after that I also

was part of some boutique companies

small niche companies in in

in payments

also was a part of the leadership team at CapGemini

and then five years ago

I decided to start my

own company from scratch with my partners

so I think

that uh yeah

I can

talk a lot about

our experience in small and big companies

and not only about pharma

so feel free also to ask your questions

that are not about pharma because

I think we both have a lot of experience

also out of pharma

so be our guest

the coming hours

coming hour

sorry not "hours" but "hour".

Yeah definitely

Please everyone who's watching this

we always invite you to ask your questions and our

specialist will

answer them or do the best to respond

uh we also invite you to share your anecdotes

stories or anything that you want

may want to

share with us today.

So I will start with the conversation saying

let's tackle the big

I will say it's the big question that got us all here:

What is the difference

and is there a difference

between the big corporations and the startups?

How and what do you think about it?

who wants to tackle it first?

Yvette, are you up for it?

yeah sure I can go first

yeah thanks

So I think there's different angles one can look at

and just in trying to summarize

or like kind of getting on point for this webinar

so there's different points of views

I come from a very quality based focus

but we do also have like the sales marketing focus

right? so I think in regards to this

I can give a

a bit of insights as of the regulated

as of the quality management

because yes

you do have to have customer relation management

specifically pharma and medical device

you do have to have a health care representative

but sometimes they don't go digital

they kind of stuck in their old ways

and this is no difference between corporate and startup

but the start up is a bit more extra

flexible and faster and willing to adjust

so they see the support in these

now digital customer relation management systems

um and I have been working in big and small

with and without digital customer relation management

um so it was either person driven or digital driven

and I can clearly say that um

there is to some regards difference in big corporate

and startup

they do have money

the big corporates

the startups don't

although the startup are actually more willing to try

so this is kind of a catch 22

that was an experience I've made yeah

I fully recognised it

Yeah. Martijn.

I fully recognize what Yvette says also because

my current company has also gone to that stages but

but what I really want to pronounce is

and to add on what Yvette says is that

what is a really

big difference for me

if I look back to the last 20 years is

if you work for corporates

you have the

the convenience of having a brand

a really established brand

and what you often see is that uh

people buy from big companies because of the brand

brand but also because of the

yeah security

and if you start

a new company or almost new company

you have to build a brand

so you really have to be keen

on all, okay,

what value are I'm going to bring to the market

and how does it

distinguish from the established brands

and that's...

that's

that lasts a lot of

years to establish

and also costs a lot of money

but for me

personally it was all

always in my whole career

it was a challenge

but also I loved it

but it's really tough to do it

because processes you can have in place

you can have systems in place

but at the end

is what are you

what is your brand to the market

and I would say be

be very keen on that

because don't underestimate what a brand can

make or break.

I love it.

I love the concept about the brand

and the importance and difference and how the

the trust

that people put on the big corporate

but leave the

small or the startups behind

I will say we had the discussion

a similar discussion

I think with you, Yvette,

when we met long ago

about if that's actually a fact

and I would love to get your insights about that

Yeah, sure, so actually

when I met Stefan

that's over a year by now

we actually

we actually had

had a similar

had a similar um

start back then

talking about sales and I said

you know what

sales marketing

this is a very common topic for

any product

one has in their daily life

if it comes to

very highly regulated companies

taking pharmaceutical companies

marketing is like a grey zone

there is even law

specifically in Germany

which does or does not allow certain kind of marketing

false advertisement

and stuff like that

So, actually

working for big corporate like Roche

I wasn't even aware of marketing

there were no marketing

there's not

not the typical marketing you would know of

there's no flyers

"Hey try our new anti-cancer drug"

you know? This is...

This is nothing that I actually kinda got to see

and yes there is something like sales

but it's not a typical sales representative.

It is more a medical trained person

who goes to doctors

as one of the targets

and explains

what the new drug is

what it's about

what it can do for a patient.

So it's not about "selling"

It's not about "marketing" it.

It's about

also as much we mentioned

it's more about an awareness

so you can speak more of a brand awareness

so when I got through the smaller companies

the start-ups

that was the first time that I actually saw

that that might be a big issue

a big problem

for these small companies.

It's not about yet selling

because when you're start up

you're most likely still in

in the research

you're in the

pre clinical

you might be in the clinical already

but you're not on a market yet

but you already have an issue

by finding possible providers

that are like:

"We don't know you"

"You're too small"

"You might run out of money"

so they don't make

business with you

so I recognize that me

ignoring sales

marketing was kind of a

a break or make

you know as we mentioned before

full awareness is needed of that

because a brand

is marketing

a brand is sale now.

So that was a

lesson learned.

And, Juliana,

we had this not fun

but kind of funny discussion

where we brought up this Netflix series.

Yes, I love that.

So that was before the regulation on

marketing

actually came into place

so not-trained medical staff

went and told

the doctors

"Oh take this drug"

"Your patient has a broken leg"

or you know

"He has back pain, just give that to them"

"It's awesome"

and it cost

one of the biggest

opioid crisis that is

still ongoing

with one of

the highest

death rates

due to a product

that was actually implemented

and meant to do something good

so this is kind of where I also

learned to see that

um there's always a circle

and you always have to have a good look at

where in the

process you're at

and do not ignore

what might

you might not need it yet

but you might

not need it later

and ignoring that

will not last in a long run.

Yes.

I recall our

conversation and

how it was important

like we said

we discussed

the regulations

and things like that

and how in that show

we're not going to say

it in that show uh

the regulations

were not really there

like they had

huge parties

and things like that

and how that made an impact

nowadays

because you

now need to

ensure that everything that

you provide

and in the way that

you provide

the marketing

that you do

as you said

goes according to those

rules that are set

after this huge implosion

let's say in the US.

What do you...?

Do you have

any inputs, Martijn?

I would love to know

About what you said,

if you go to

the sales process

I think at the end

of course

both companies had the

the big ones

and smaller ones

have to be keen on

uh how they

can support their clients in doing things better um

and in the case of HCP

I would always ask:

How can I make

your work better

and not only from a medicine perspective

but also from an administrative perspective?

Or whatever.

But that also is

the same in

if you sell professional services

in a small company

you have also have to

always have to be

keen on

building trust

and that's that's

by showing genuine

interest in

the person and also

based on that

bring value to the

person so I think

a brand is of course

very important

but in the end

always people always want to

see value

in what you bring

and I think that's always

a little bit same.

It's not that,

for example,

IBM sells everything very smooth because they are IBM.

At the end clients wants to see value.

And so there are

that's also a parallel between

the big ones and the smaller ones

in my opinion of my experiences.

Yeah I think that's definitely the case.

We had an hour long talk with you.

We discussed about the importance of value

and not just giving

because the

the selling part is not...

No one's going to buy if you call them and say like

"Hey buy this" and

"Hey, take this"

You need to give the value to

whoever is going to receive that

and I definitely agree with that.

Other thing that Yvette said. I'm sorry.

Do you want to add something else to this?

No, the only thing is to

of course that's

that's you as a

as a corporate

you have a longer time for sale cycles

Yes.

What you see in smaller companies is that it's quite tight

the bridges and

and the sale cycles because

you have to pay the people

you have to pay the organizations

and so the urgency to build value as a small company

always say you see that on the eagerness

of the people in the smaller companies because

they are very willing to help you

because they know that they can sell them

and a big group as you can see

people are yeah

I also worked for corporates to tell you a little bit

behind and think okay

maybe next year or something

but that's that's

that's not that's possible on a on a big boat

but not on a speedboat

so you have to act

and that's that's um

but but but

but before we we

we go further

Are there already some questions?

Because we want some interaction, of course.

We want to know about you

who's watching us

Do you have any comments or any experience?

Or do you have any questions?

Again please do not hesitate to

We do have a question.

I'm asking to vote for a question so, question A

How do we...

How do start-ups and corporations differ in pharma

and like other industries?

What are the main differences?

And the other one is about the acquisition

like client acquisition in startups and what is the

how does it work in corporations? Again in pharma

Since there nobody... Since our audience is...

I don't know. Audience, wake up!

Maybe having a meal now because it's 6:00 pm.

Come on! and coffee.

Let's ask. Which one would you like to tackle?

Question A or question B?

Yes and regarding that question that you said Stef

I think the first one was.

We discussed and

Martijn also brought it up

how the startups need to be more aggressive

let's say between

in comparison with the big corporate

my question will be

and you Yvette also brought it in your introduction

you said that um

the startups are more flexible and more eager

to transform and adopt these technological

tools that we have right now

more than the big corporate.

Can you specify or give us some examples?

Or maybe

can we go more into that?

Because I think that's very interesting

in terms of right now we're in a very digital era

where everything is on the computer, the cloud

Can you specify or give us some examples?

Can we go more into that?

Oh that's very weird

Oh yes I'm sorry

I'm sorry for that.

So that.

Can we go to that?

Please.

Yeah sure, Juliana.

So my experience on that, I have actually two

two examples

they're actually also independent on pharma or

not pharma.

It's about you know

being a start up that actually

um had a base of service which was on the market

it was running

so you are up and running

on the market and then you develop something new

Stefan? yes?

well we do have something new. In fact.

We have a comment from the audience.

oooh yeah

oh very spicy

The comment is from Mr

Mujahed Khan Pathan

the question is:

How are AI machine learning

being incorporated into regulatory intelligence

databases to improve predictive compliance?

And let's see how can be that proved in

corporations and starters, okay?

mmm so actually

since this AI is a hot topic latest beginning last year

so I think latest since and uh

beginning of last year

everybody's aware of that

I have experienced myself that

that company I was with that time

smaller company

not start up level anymore

but small company being very edgy and flexible

they actually decided okay

"this is going to be something"

and actually every department was told

"here's access"

"we created access for you"

"you get the paid version"

"go ahead and play around"

get to use how it works and see what you could do

that would help you on your daily basis um

they let you go for

for a few weeks

and then in

in accordance with you

they did sit down and said what

what could that offer for your department

and I'm literally talking sales department

marketing also quality department um

product owner

so different departments

and of course

for some it's easier. Marketing content

it's quite easy

if you go to

I'd like to have an upgrade on a quality

assurance agreement on quality side

which these AI tools are also possible to do

so you still do have to have

as per regulation for eye principle

I know that there's companies that start to do

computer system validations on AI generated content

so I think there is some stuff that already

can be done using AI

I think replacing the final control by humans

specifically for regulated environment

like quality management

speaking pharma

biotech medical device

even a beauty company that is 9001 certified

or has a product that goes on or in your body

supplements

their FDA regulated

so all of these will still do have the same challenges

um so there's some companies

who already have AI implemented tools

yes, but I think the way for fully automated

no human needs to check and give a final approval

I think we're still away from that yeah

In our last webinar, Stef,

I think you remember

I think I hope you remember haha

we discuss the AI implementation and how everything can

uh we can improve

but at the same time

at the end of the day

we still need a human being

to be able to approve or not what it's uh

provided by the by the AI again

we have to remember that it's a tool.

I will love to hear.

I don't remember who said it exactly

but one of the guests actually mentioned that like

the result of your machine learning or AI

is as good as the data that you give it

if you didn't add data

then well you're not

you're not gonna be happy about the input

right?

One of the things that

for example

here at Platforce

we're very careful about compliance and using AI

being compliant using AI because

as far as I know in

in western uh

Western Europe the US

um AI is a very hot topic and compliance is very

very very big topic

that's why

haha by the way

ChatGPT is wrong 58% yes

Yeah.

That's what

that's what we see.

So basically it takes a lot

a lot of effort on our side on building the product

but I think performer companies well

to be compliant with AI

but at the same time

sort of like try to use AI to gain some benefits

gain an edge

Martijn, do you have an input here?

I hear all what you say and I agree with that

but I have also other angle and

and what I see now from AI

but I'm not an expert on it

its main goal now is to be efficient in

in bringing data together and

and make content from it or

make an article of it.

It could be efficient.

But if I go to the commercial perspective

I think we have to be keen all before we use this

both as a startup or corporate company,

do we use it in a way that it's still

visible for our clients or HCPs that it's from us?

Because my fear is a little bit

that we are going to create a lot of generic stuff

because we use the data which is available

but we can use it

but also buyer can use it

and the chance that it will be

will generate the same content...

So my point is

be keen on using it because what I already said

if you want to make a brand

to build a brand or keep a brand

you have to be keen on the specifics of your company.

What message do you want to bring?

What are the values that you have as a company?

So for me it's efficient, efficiency too.

But be keen on that

you keep distinction from your competitors.

How you use it, because otherwise it's all the same.

Yes, yes, I agree on that like we need to...

Maybe somebody just doesn't agree with that.

so, just my opinion.

Please let us know.

I have a comment

okay I have a comment

I would say yes

There is this market

I'm following Tim Davidson.

He has a TikTok channel.

He says: "Okay,

let's test today: is it B2B or ChatGPT?" haha

and you get crazy titles

A tool that helps other tools improve AI

Is it ChatGPT or

is B2B?

It's actual B2B!

You wouldn't think that people come up with

you know

with things which are like so

so so much the same so again

If you give... If you're...

if you're using the same settings

the same input you're giving to

to your AI that everyone

you're gonna get the same results, you know?

There's no point in using AI if you're

if you don't expect to be

you know, creative

So you gotta

you know disclose

disclose some information

in-house AI

that's at least what we are doing.

We're getting it

we're using it for our inside

inside work

and at some point

you can also answer the question here from

our listener.

Well, of course,

you can use some regulatory

information that is quite strict

you can use it for

for building

you know the database for your inside

uh inside company AI

and that is possible

a few cases of doing that.

I would love to hear, sorry.

I would love to hear, Yvette, about your anecdote

about the creative data

for gathering information with AI

Please.

So that's

that was actually a kind

of a sub project we started in my last position

where we were supporting

on an online platform

a web-based app,

for supplier qualification

for pharma and life science companies

and one of the topic that popped up over and over again

over the past year

was pharma vigilance.

So vigilance is

anything you need for any of the companies

beauty,

supplements,

food, all the way up to pharmaceutical

So vigilance is a hot topic

and pharmaceutical vigilance

specific here for the pharmaceutical

but the base is the same

and when

when this whole AI topic got really hot

we actually sit down with our IT team

last year and said:

Well, let's go

and see if we can use all of the common

vigilance systems

so there's vigilance systems available,

open to public,

they have to be by law.

And we use ChatGPT

and other AI tools to filter and sort and gather

so I'd like to say

for data sorting

or data gathering

so anything that is in the World Wide Web

till January 22 is in ChatGPT.

If you wanted to create something new out of it

you have to be very careful

but for gathering and data collection

I do have to say it worked very nicely

so we did an in-house

validation

by having experts,

external pharmaco vigilant experts,

internal quality manager,

by checking on the data

that was created by this

and it was actually released as a prototype

for some of our test customers.

So that. So it can actually work.

And with easy tricks.

You can also make it validated

but you have to be very careful in your user

specification

what the product actually does or does not.

And as long as you're careful with that

and don't overdo it

you can actually

have a very

very useful

addition

to your daily work.

I am honestly not aware yet of, full on AI

in a sense of

let's say vigilance reporting for pharmaceutical

or quality management systems

so I think we are still steps away from that not

not because AI might not be capable

but again due to the fact that

you do have to have a four eye principle

so you have to have

so as long as you can't validate AI

you will not have

a second AI validated

which then would be four eye principle

because they're both yet in a sense of you're not

you're not a value

or like a validated system yet.

But I do agree what much

have also said.

You can save so much more time

for just for content creation

for summarizing what was

what is regulations for

um factor X

so any data that has been

out till January 22 is in a system

and you can very nicely filter and get that.

Ok, we have a question here for Mr Martijn

Mr Martijn, we got

a question from our audience.

Finally they woke up.

So, what is the better option for a diploma holder?

Joining a start-up

or working with large corporation?

Yeah, if

if I understand the

question correctly

this is from somebody that's

leaving school or

the university I think

Yes, I think so yeah.

Yeah yeah. That's a good one.

At first you

you have to be keen on what kind of person

are you because

I put this away because it's a little bit annoying.

What kind of person are you?

If you want to start

some people say okay

when I want to learn

the first couple of years with

with kind of trainee programs and that kind of things

I would definitely advise you

not to go to starter.

But to go

to corporate.

But if you are,

if you want to

work directly and

see how things works or not

you want to experience that.

But also

put your sleeves.

How do you say that?

Make the world your sleeve, roll up your sleeves

Yeah.

It's starting in

in a start-up.

It's fun because everyday you learn

practical things,

how it works,

and I think in

in the corporate world you

you are more,

how do you say that?

They will help you to

to be more theoretical um

the best worker

but in the start

you learn every day how to work and

and so

it's up to you.

But there's a big difference and

and be sure there is more pressure in

that there's more pressure on results and

and doing things right first

in startups because there is

there is more pressure for results.

so I wish you a lot of wisdom to decide on that.

Be wise, yeah.

Be wise, yeah.

Yvette,

we also have another question from the audience

Thomas Evangelidis

I'm sorry if I killed your last name.

It's not my intention.

He said, speaking about AI,

how startups and big pharma perceive

sharing data and performing operations on the cloud?

In my experience

Big Pharma companies are extremely

extremely skeptical and reluctant

to use cloud based AI services for drug design

and startups are more open to utilizing these services.

I'm asking because it's much more

convenient to set up this online computional services

on the cloud to address development issues

and regularly update them

to go through a licensing and installation

on the premises of a big pharma company

which involves providing user support,

installation instructions,

travel shooting, etc

Additionally,

for resource demanding AI applications

the cloud saves

the cost of purchasing expensive hardware

for just occasional use of the application.

I think it's somewhat something for you Yvette

Yeah, well, that is uh

that is a question that I've actually been faced quite

quite often with.

So it always comes back

speaking of corporate

it always comes back to data integrity GDPR

proper intellectual property IP

so this is, it is a hot and big topic for pharma.

So, for example

it was a company and they wanted to implement

a new just a document management system

very easy setup

really easy going

but the quality department had to do a "change"

so it's a documentation

you apply for a change what is it

what should it be

what's the possible risks

and then you do have data safety

data integrity, GDPR

so a quality team needs to sit down

needs to sit down with IT people

for that company

and most likely, yes.

Just due to that possible risks

and additional work for the quality team

having other solutions

they might not pick you. So, yes.

This is a topic.

it's a hurdle.

So my recommendation on that is:

find out what tools they do use,

find companies

corporate companies that do have

approved tools, and just

find what is the cloud,

what is the server,

where are the servers located,

big topic by the way

and you're not having any European server

and your data run somewhere outside of Europe

Eastern or somewhere in US

they will not take your solution

so literally

this is something I can recommend.

Do a little checklist.

Call it a "change".

And if you wanna bring that product to a company that

is highly regulated

you already did the work for the quality manager

so not only

do you have the value

we talked about

your startup

why should I take yours

okay your product is good

and you have additional value

I don't need to do most of the regulatory quality work

so this is my recommendation

do not invent the wheel new

there is lots of other companies out there

that have solutions

for corporate and for big pharma.

See what's their solutions,

if cloud, what kind of cloud

where's the server

and stuff like that.

And do a risk assesment

intellectual property,

data integrity,

data safety,

and GDPR, and have these

specifically highlighted out,

and then if you

show that to a

bigger company

corporate company

it makes it easier.

It's called "supplier qualification"

So you qualify yourself

and you will always need that anyways

so you kinda

as we like to say here back home

it's 2 flies with one clap.

So this is a kind of a recommendation

I can give and speak here.

Yes, it is a big issue

sometimes for not good reasons

but it is a topic to be aware of.

I love the not good reasons haha

We have another question from Slawomir Pasko

I'm sorry if I mispronounce your name and last name.

What's the best way to validate product ideas

with pharma corporation?

Any suggestions on how

and what kind of roles should I look for?

Oh, Martijn.

I'm not fully aware what is meant by product.

Is that the medicine of treatment or new concepts?

I don't know

but let's

because it's not clear on this

From my perspective,

have a dialogue with your audience

have a dialogue with

the people

that could benefit from the product

I see a lot of companies and that's also

that's not only in corporate

but also in the smaller ones

that this step is often forgotten.

Talk with and know

who your audience is

know who can benefit of it and talk with them and

also to make a link with other industries

I worked a lot also in the financial service industry

and what they also did today a lot

had a lot of client arenas that they spoke with

with the audience about the financial products and

why do I mention

financial services?

because they are also very regulated

everybody in pharma thinks that the pharma is regulated

I can tell you maybe

financial service is even more regulated and they are

they were also pushed the last 10 years

to come out of their comfort zone

and of course

being aware of the fact you need to be compliant

you need to be

careful with

with how the things are done.

So maybe he's also asking what kind of rules

I would suggest also talk with

with people in financial services that are

how to say, involved in product approval processes

because each product in financial

should also be approved like

in the pharma business

and they are used to

to work in a very regulated environment

but I think they are a little bit further already in

in finding a balance between

relevance for the audience and

and being compliant.

I see that that's often a struggle for a lot of pharma

companies that they're really stick to okay

"we have to be compliant"

but there's also something like "what is the value"

and I know that it's very

extreme but

but come out of your comfort zone.

There are other industries that have the same struggles.

Yeah, that's what I want to say.

I'll answer this as well

and I think Yvette

it's a very interesting topic

Yeah

Thank you, you bring this up

So my input.

We actually had

a ton of discussions on this with Yvette um

and maybe if Yvette has time

she'll tell us about like sourcing from Alibaba

how can you

how can you find vendors for your free product

if you're informed? haha

Anyway so my input is this

so Platforce is an example of

how we were a small company smoking or working with

we are working with pharma, right?

And we have a tech product

which we're trying to sell to pharma

so the first

thing that you should have in mind when you

work with pharma

prepare for a lot of discussions

and pharma by

by far is

is very very compliant

So you have

you have all sorts of questions

Yvette that might sound like very stupid for you

For example, Consent.

Martijn here has a

consent only consent management company

so basically, right?

And it's very very

it's very important for pharma to be consent and to be

to do everything according to the rules

so when you create a software product

you need to know about the specifics of pharma

second is like

consider your audience

what problem are you solving for your audience?

Pharma, well you know,

everyone thinks Pharma has a lot of big budget

life sciences

also the same like

the Roches and the Grunenthal

of the world have a lot of money

yeah they do

but they're very

very careful about how they spend their money

and you gotta

you gotta find

you gotta bring them a

a painkiller

not a vitamin

so very often what I see is that

software products which are out there in the market

they are like a vitamin

which simply explain the nation is

why should they buy you?

like what what sort of pain are you

are you killing for me?

and if the pain is not enough

then they will not switch to your solution

like they'll

they'll use pen and paper like that you did before

because number 2 about pharma: is very conservative

and you have a lot of

you have a lot of talks on low levels

let's say on the manager level

on the C level

C executives and so on

how to validate?

I think Yvette

and Martijn can help

you can help with

with that part

I already spoke too much.

Yvette, you want the microphone and discuss validation?

Yeah sure.

I think the question is

the best way to validate the product idea

so on a product idea

the first thing that came to my mind is

the value proposition canvas

um maybe we can share a link for that

um and that also reflects Stefan

what you said

give them a painkiller

not a vitamin

and quite often

when people try to validate a new product idea

independent of it being an SaS product for pharma

it can be a new bike

doesn't matter or new car

they kind of mix up the pain and the gain

that a possible customer might have

have out of it

because people will not pay the money for the gain

it's a nice to have what you need

as Stefan mentioned

you have to have the painkiller

not the vitamin um

so this is one recommendation I can do

and as I also helped bring SaS

product for pharma for life science into

into this world

so what also my lesson learned is here

not only be aware of your potential customer

of course you need to ask them

but when you send them an email or try to contact

can you give me feedback?

what's your pain?

sometimes they don't even know

so my experience is a LinkedIn poll

so you do your canvas

you have great ideas about possible pains

you might have some feedback already

and then you let them decide and you will be surprised

but what they actually tell you their pain is

and what you thought their pain was

so this is kind of recommendations free

easy to do um

that I would like

get you guys on the way with

in a sense of validate

I think we all agree

bottom line

the customer in the very end says yes

I do need the product and gives you the contract

and I think that is your final validation

you do have

but other than that

these would be the steps

if you don't have a question on top

maybe understood your question

It's a very wide topic.

Otherwise,

I'd recommend these from my side.

Yeah and one

thing to add on what Yvette also said

and Stefan is

it's not a shame also to build

something together with a client

because then you also have your validation

and then you can scale it up and that's

that's what we actually did

um and then

you know for sure

in a company that it's a problem

then you have your validation

and then you have to think about

how can I scale the product then.

So don't be afraid to

to cooperate with

with the customer

to build something huh

I like the... Sorry

But I really like the scaling that you said

that building and working with a client

and building everything to meet their needs

because after all

cells involves

solving the need as it's definitely as a pain killer.

If you don't solve a need

then why do I need you?

At the end of the day

that will be the question.

Perhaps yeah.

It's really important.

And that's also

I have to say

that's also the most

challenging part

because you're

you're also

willing to mix up

the gains and the pains

what the

effects are,

that's often what happens

and we also did that in

in the past

so I recognize it.

Don't do that.

ha ha ha uh

We have one question on the screen and one question

behind the screen

so let's tackle the one on the screen

so we don't look

so everyone can please

write your question

so we can bring it in here.

How to drive success and do a quantum leap in startups?

who wants to tackle that?

I see you Yvette nodding

so I think you want to go

no there's no oh

The lesson I learned is

sit down from the very beginning

with everybody responsible and define

what is success

so I learned that everybody has a very different

approach of what is success or what is a quantum leap

for me for quality is oh my god

my quality management system is in place

yeah this can take one or two years

for marketing

oh my god my email campaign

we got 30% convasion on traffic that got a set up call

So, define what your goals are

they are most likely a bit more

department specific

also honestly

in a start up

what I learned is corporate targets

like the big targets you have in big companies

you are far away from that

start with the department um

success Kpis

because you need to learn what your company is

and before you will even

I mean honestly

the goal is to make money and be known

but you are far away from that as a startup

so really define what

what is success for you

is it monetary?

is it traffic?

is it conversion in a sense of paying customer?

To some startups

it's more valuable

to have a million follower in total on social media

and to some other

it's like I need five higher paying customers

and they make my

they make my

my my...

project going or whatever it is.

So it can be very different

so I think this needs to be defined first.

Ok, ok. I like it.

And then our second question behind the screen is

Every corporate has started as a start up company

how long and when can you consider start up a corporate?

I love that you've left that's a nice question

it's very nice question now.

thank you for that

yeah yeah

it's it's um

For me a corporate is

is...

It's a very systematic

company with a lot of rules and a lot of things that

a lot of processes um

that sometimes not nah

and sometimes

but also often not bring what's

what is needed to

be very

agile but also flexible regards your

your audience in

your dark group

but that's my opinion based on

on experience

Yeah, when is it?

I don't think that real startups end up in a corporate

because as long as that the founders and

and

the first people that built up

the first part of the company are still in the company

it won't be a corporate at all because then you

you still have the mentality of getting things done and

if it's needed to

change the strategy or adapt a strategy

so I don't think that

a lot of startup companies will never end

as a corporate

how I perceive how corporate works

but maybe there are other examples

but I don't think so.

I'll give you my 5 cents.

If you guys know

this is out of Pharma,

if you guys know Zappos used to be well

they were renowned about their customer support

at some point

people would call Zappos

the Zappos is customer support

nothing to order pizza

because their website wouldn't work for Domino and then

the customer support from Zappos would call the

the Domino's because they had

the direct line that they would order

pizza for like customers right

that you know

and then the

the founder who unfortunately passed away

the founder of Zappos

they were sold to Amazon eventually

He said...

He said the following things like

when I don't

when I don't know by name

every niche employ of my company

it means I've grown to biggest time either to

redefine it as a corporation or to sell the company

so I like that definition of a corporation

so if you don't know in person

your employees

all of your employees

then probably you've become a corporation.

I think we have a

we have a question.

We have a question

We have a question

from Malén D'Urso

How can you effectively develop a brand awareness strategy

strategy

for a pharma company that is well established in

Europe and US

but it's expanding into new markets

let's say Latam

where... Sorry

Where the team is comparatively

small and resembles a startup?

It's quite like a startup inside of a corporate.

Have you ever dealt with something like that?

Yeah that's an interesting question.

I think what

what I learnt also

with similar

projects is

is that you have to validate how this

specific market works

what are the specifics of the market

what I often see is that the

the companies get direction in Europe and I think okay

then we are going to the US or from the US to Europe.

We helped also a lot of companies

that went from the US to Europe

but you really have to be keen on

how does it work.

For example in Europe

you have a total utter regime regards data Protection

Europe is more about digital safety.

We are more established on using digital channels than

for example in

in the US

what we see.

So try to understand

how did the...

What the dynamics are?

The specifics are per country to get your message

and because you're also asking about brand awareness

how you can bring your message to the right person

and that...

that differs from data Protection perspective

that differs from general perspective

that differs from cultures

that differs from how people are

want to be perceived

and treated

and a lot of people I think in US think okay

Europe is the same because that's Europe

but we all know Europe.

We have a lot of different countries.

Germans are totally different

than the Dutches.

Can I say that?

We are for more direct.

Doctors are also, have an utter perception

how they want to be

how they look to pharma

They're very suspicious

but in other countries that is not so.

So my advice is

try to understand how it really works in that markets

regards all these

topics I mentioned.

Yeah that would be my advice.

I like it. Yvette,

Do you have anything to add?

Yeah so um I had the situation where I was like very

you know blue eyed

as we said in Germany

you just do something

not thinking about

that you're outside of your box

and got a full on experience in well

it works different if you walk outside of your door

literally, yeah?

The Dutch people are different than the Germans.

the Spanish are different than the French people.

so I always like to go back to the persona

make a country specific persona

try to find advocates,

social media users who have big followers already

they know the follower

they know the business

they know the companies.

Invest in that

if you can, yeah?

You will have more out of that than

trying to do your own marketing strategy

because they already know the market

they already know whom to talk and where to talk to

so that is

point number 2.

Even for us supporting pharma companies

in my last position

we used LinkedIn people

or Instagram people who had lots of follower

on these topics

yeah and um

ask them what they would like for an exchange

you know and you can make a great um

advocates that kind of support you bringing

the idea of what your painkillers to the market

um and um also like

um getting to know the differences

in general does help

me personally

I don't know

I asked this question

in the private chat.

Can I? Can I say that?

Can I actually do references

recommendations?

So I stumbled over

her name is Erin Meyer

and she does

lots of like content

and she did the culture map

and I learned so much from that book

because it gives you

insights into

decision making

how open am I to conversations,

how much

is in the country,

and specifically on a business level

that is gonna help you.

So it's a recommendation I can give to you

so persona combined with

find somebody in that country

who's already having a network

plus understanding

the cultural differences yourself will help.

That's my recommendation on that one.

I like it. Stef?

You had something dropped.

Well so I'll

answer with a quote

from our ex speaker

her name is

Claudia Adreani

she said...

who is a proud

venezolana

so she's from Venezuela

living in the UK

for a very long time

she says "Europe and

UK is for business,

Latin America is for the soul".

Well I'm Latin American

so I can tell you she's right yeah

if we're talking about markets

you have to take each individual market as its own

and the first that you will you should consider is

market maturity

for example

If you take Latin America right

Mexico is let's say a more mature market than Colombia

and Brazil tops it all

Brazil is a very mature in I'm talking terms of

terms of pharmactic knowledge in the world

Brazil is the most mature market that

I personally have seen in Latin America.

It's not bad.

it's again it's about the economic

It's about the economics state

in the country as well

so if the economy stable

while pharma also developing quite fast

so you need to think about

a particular channel that will work for you in that

in that country

so if we talk about LinkedIn on

Latin American countries except Brazil

it's not really good channel

so you'll find people mostly on Instagram

you'll find people here on Instagram

you'll find people posting WhatsApp even on TikTok

and that would be

that's the way how they consume content

so you gotta

gotta do that

Brazil again

in Brazil it's a bit more interesting because they

they there maybe market is bigger

maybe they have more money

I don't know

but they do have like even science show like

science talk shows like Talking Pharma or something

I discovered it recently from an event

we are potentially going to

By the way

call out to her

she's doing a great job on creating content

on the behalf of pharma and popularizing

popularizing pharma

just to finish this

in Asia again

very big difference again in pharma um

big decisions are usually made in Singapore

if you talk about Asia Singapore

Middle East has its own hub in Dubai

without the outside that you have India big market

you have China and market on its own

where you have to adapt where the top of the listen

we organize this

we have another 10 15 minutes okay.

We're having, we're having fun.

Japan is another interesting market

but like if you're into pharma

then consider India consider Singapore and then China

Japan, Korea

these are the tigers.

Yvette, you wanted to say something, right?

I have something to add

but it will be like a promotional segment of this

talk show.

Are there any questions?

It's related to this,

so it's promotional

but at the same time it's on the topic.

We are planning

to have

actually uh

another talk show for

discussing the importance and difference

of the strategies used for brand awareness and

client acquisiton and things like that in Latin America

because as Stef said

it's very different from...

I knew you would like my promotional content haha

uh it's very different from the US and Europe

and as you guys said

even in Europe

as they put a...

I will say sometimes you think them as a block

like a whole thing

but you don't think

you don't separate the parts because in Latin America

Stefan said

Brazil is quite different from Mexico

Mexico is different from Colombia

and Colombia is from Argentina

We have certain

elements in common in our ways,

in our behavior

I will say but at the same time

it's quite different

even when you're speaking to one

we have different

life experiences.

So, so yeah

that will be my

my input in this

haha

Yes, do you guys have something else to add regarding?

Yvette or Martijn.

I asked a question a couple of

minutes ago in the private chats for us most

maybe that's for the audience

if there is still some

energy at the audience

that was the question

where is it?

which one?

yeah what can the audience

say about the difference in maturity and speed

in digital transformation

if you look to the more biotech and

uh the corporate ones

let's say let's say it like that

and I'm very curious how that is perceived because I

I have not been on that

but that's not the topic now

but I'm very curious how people see that if there

is there a difference in immaturity and

speed of digital transformation yeah

So we can test now if everybody still awake.

Can you please guys come on, wake up?

IIs there somebody that works

for big one and now for a biotech

and can share his experience?

because, well, but

we'll take it.

like I guess we'll discuss them if there is a question

there is someone coming and I would say yeah

there is a difference

so in terms of digital transformation

obviously smaller companies should be faster

I mean I know that for you it's right

it's so marching because we've been like what

we are partners for some time

now that I know you guys are fast but

um you know

In pharma what I can say about pharma

pharma is trying now to

to enhance the digital transformation

even the leaders that I talk to

are the leaders that I talked to in pharma

they they say look

AI is a big thing and we're

we're certainly wanna embrace it.

Our providers

ABCD are not interested in providing more AI

so we have we're looking for solutions

so answering that, it is actually common there.

Yes there is

there is a gap there.

So pharma,

let's say software providers

not all of them are embracing AI in terms of like

features that support the AI

so there is certain AI issue in the market

if you can help with that

that would be great um

I think speed is the only

only edge competitive edge that you have as a startup

speed and maybe flexibility

but with time it passes and you lose it

that's why it's important not to lose momentum

We already have example, Stefan,

from your perspective

that you see some biotechs are

are further than

than the big ones because of their

that they are smaller and that they embracing more

the opportunities from digital transformation or is

isn't that your conclusion till now?

Yeah, it is, it is

it is my conclusion as well

what we work with again

I'll talk about Platforce.

We work with a lot of companies who

who where you know...

Platforce is the first CRM in the US actually

That's the first CRM they encounter

and then they see not only for biotech

but also for life science and for

pharma too and even

even in the cultural company approached us and say hey

uh we see like a lot of common things here

we're going through a rapid digitalization here

um is there anything you can do for us like uh

we're seeing a lot of common things in

in your platform that we could use for agriculture

and I was shocked

I was like yeah

but apparently there is money in

in agriculture as well

and it's similar in some way to

to what we're building for

for pharma and life sciences you know?

Yeah.

I can from my perspective

but everybody has different perspectives

I don't see

I think in in

in showing how it should be digital transformation

I think um the

the corporates are very strong

but I don't see it in practice a lot

if I'm being honest

and in the biotech scene

I see that they are

of course very focused on getting traction

um but they are also lacking the capabilities to

really jump on the train on digital transformation

because they

they have limited resources and

money

to really step on the train so

so but that's

that's that's what I see

It's...

it's in both

uh companies

it's not going that fast

but that's also

I think that has to do

but because we talk a lot about it also in our company

and with our clients

what the real problem is

I think is that there is no compelling event yet

for pharma to really jump on this train

Well, I mean

I experienced life in

in both settings that they can both be fast

they can both be fast

I do agree the average flexibility

agility is with a smaller in startup that's given

but I've also seen that big corporate

speaking of Covid

you would be surprised how fast overnight

they were willing to go into digital outsourcing.

Because there was a compelling event they had to be.

Exactly yeah.

So they can..

Yvette, sorry.

Can you tell us that? I think it comes handy now yeah

so yeah I mean

you know that's

that's that was the start for my last work

for my last project that just got out overnight

so to speak yeah

it was very useful to kind of have that little push

um and I do agree that pharma uh

companies should have

even if it's one person

one person per company is fine

so you need one person for startup

you need one for corporate

who should have a specific

business development sub task that is digitalization

and although they have bigger development

business development teams

they actually have less resources

which is unreasonable on these topics

because they do have enough money

they do have

enough people working in business development

but maybe they do oversee it

maybe they do not have the need and

or I think they just don't have the pressure

Exactly! And that

I think Steph and I shared it with you in our previous

conversations

the reason the digital transformation

was effect for banking and insurance

was of the credit crisis in 2009

because their

business model shifted very fast from

financial results to operational excellence

and then they had to

otherwise we

we we in the Netherlands or in Germany

you just uh now had to

to go to a bank office to open a bank account

still in this time

but it it's

it's it's I'm

I'm wondering when this compelling event is

is really coming

and Covid was a

was a first one

but what you said Yvette

it was also a little bit fading away

I forgot after that

because the sales reps could go out again haha

so yeah yeah

but that that's

that's the truth.

So, I'm yeah

I'm very curious what the

the really compelling event will be that they will

x ray this

this digital transformation

I think that

at the end of the day

everyone wants to have

and maybe everyone needs to still be competitive

and as soon as one of them

start with that process

the other ones will follow

because according to the movie trolls from

it says "no troll left behind"

Well, in this case is the same

no company wants to be left behind I think

Exactly the fear of missing out is that, huh?

So, guys, Stef,

do you have anything else to add?

Because we're

running a little bit over our time with you

and we don't want to keep you here kidnapped.

So let's rope up

let's rope up with the discussion.

First of all,

thank you audience so much for being with us today.

Follow us. Subscribe to the newsletter.

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Please follow

but most important

follow our guest day Doctor Yvette

and Martijn

for leading their own very

very great companies

follow them on LinkedIn guys

Do you want to let people know where to find you on LinkedIn?

your emails?

maybe websites?

Yeah sure so

my name .de is my webpage and with that name

there's just one Yvette Schollmeier actually worldwide

so you will not have hard times find me haha

So no excuses! haha

Yeah this is over me

I'm fully available via LinkedIn so

if you have a question or remark or

everything you want to know

just drop me a message

and the website is optinsight.com

right, Martijn?

www.optinsights.com awesome

So Yvette do you have a website that people can look at?

maybe contact you or your services

yes www.yveteschollmeier.de

yeah you know

All right. Thank you very much for being our guests

Thank you very much to our audience.

We're doing this for you.

Thank you, Juliana,

for organizing this and see you quite soon. Thank you

Thank you everyone! Bye, thanks!