Portfolio Planning

Challenge

Succeeding in the clinical diagnostics business requires the focused application of resources to the development of a commercially viable portfolio of related products and services.

Once a clear understanding is gained regarding how the company’s technology might be applied to address unmet medical and market needs, the company must determine which opportunities are the best lead candidates for a new assay panel and which are best suited to broaden a panel offering. Since “one-product companies” are rarely successful, it is also important to understand what portfolio of products will best serve medical and market needs while leveraging the unique features of the company’s technology.

Strategic Approach

Portfolio planning is an essential requirement for success. One approach is to conduct an Opportunity Assessment to evaluate potential product opportunities from two perspectives: Commercial Attractiveness (CA) and Technical Likelihood of Success (TLS).

Conducting an Opportunity Assessment begins with evaluating the commercial potential of the company’s initial products to determine which might generate the most attractive revenue streams to fund future development, create value and satisfy investors. This is the CA Assessment. The other half of this exercise considers the technical difficulty of delivering a new product to market. If significant technical barriers must be overcome in order to commercialize the product, the revenue stream will be delayed and company value will build more slowly. This is the TLS Assessment. The “CA/TLS process” is a systematic, objective approach for ranking product opportunities in order to ultimately focus on the most attractive applications when developing the company’s lead products. Some opportunities, although not attractive as stand-alone products, might add incremental value to a portfolio of products and, thus, might be successfully added to the overall product development program. Such an analysis will help the company determine where to focus its research, development, business and commercial resources in order to maximize value and address the appropriate medical and market needs.