Should The Size Of Your Company Impact Your Pricing Model?

In August 2019 Clinical Leader Live was proud to feature Bari Kowal, Jonathan Cohen, and Reb Tayyabkhan of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals to discuss Developing a Benchmark Pricing Model for CROs. During the presentation, the team covered several topics, including implementing the model, the effects of company size, why the sudden interest in these models, and the feedback from CROs. In this video, the three executives discuss why the size of your company could impact your ability to implement a benchmark pricing model.

Click here to see the complete interview.

Transcript

Ed Miseta: Jon, one additional question. What about the size of the company? Is that going to play an impact here? If somebody is with a small company, maybe just a few trials and they're interested in benchmarking, does the whole process become a bit easier or is it going to be more difficult in that case?

Jonathan Cohen: I think if you have a few studies, or if this is your first major program, that you won’t have nearly as much information to look back on to help generate internal benchmarks. But, we were in that situation ourselves just a few years ago and it is more challenging.

I think that's where you try to build off of the experience of the people that you have and/or potentially pulling some external folks who can help you develop some of those benchmarks or work through various industry forums to help develop some of those benchmarks.

Then, as you start to build your portfolio, continue to adjust and develop and change those benchmarks as you see fit, not just related to some of the changes you may see in the industry but, of course, based on all the experience that you gathered just by running some studies.

To make a long story short, I do think it's a little bit more challenging. You don't have as much history, but you definitely have, I would hope, some institutional knowledge and individuals you can look at who have had some experience in this space or, if not, look externally to bring some people in to help.

Ed Miseta: Bari, even though this topic was on pricing and benchmarking, I was amazed by how many people submitted questions about CRO selection. When I'm talking to folks from the small to mid-sized companies, one of their biggest concerns always seems to be around selecting the right CRO. Based on the years you've had in the industry and everything you know, the question was what is a list of items that you should look into before selecting the right CRO? Do you have any bullet points or tips? What are the things that are most important to you when you're looking for a CRO and deciding if they're the right fit for your company

Bari Kowal: That is a really good question. I don't know that there's a completely right answer. From my years of experience and my opinion, I do think that most of the CEOs out there, speaking about the major, large CROs, they all have a lot of the same capabilities at the end of the day.

When you're talking about smaller CROs, some of the niche CROs, depending on what your needs are and essentially the global nature of the trials that are run, they may be a better fit. But ultimately, I think, to me at least, what I've seen at companies like Regeneron and even at Pfizer, which is, obviously, a lot bigger and a large pharma, I believe the same things are important.

To me, the most important aspect is culture. If there's a good cultural fit, if you are aligned with the same values and the thinking and team environment and collaboration in both companies, then that's likely a company you're going to work well with.

But I do believe, when it comes down to selecting the CRO for a trial or a program, as much as the CROs have a lot of the same capabilities, it's the team that you're going to get that's going to run that child, their strategy for the trial, their thinking and proposal around how they think it's going to get done and whether it's well thought out and really robust in terms of how they've approached it and the team they're going to put on. To me, that's what will drive the success of the program.