Forecasting Excellence Summit USA 2011

Programme

Keynotes

Become the new forecaster: a core thought-leader in the changing pharma landscape

• Position yourself at the forefront of strategic planning, independent to the influence of senior management
• Expired practices - hear how fresh, forward-thinking analysts can reinvigorate your market strategy
• Invest in your talent to develop leadership that ensures you're positively influencing business strategy
• Enable solo/small forecasting teams to make the most of their resources with a global collaborative approach

Forecasting - essential insight or unneccassary cost?

• Do firms really benefit from long term forecasting or is it an unneccassary expense
• Apply your forecasting efficiently and meaningfully to maximise resources
• Hear key examples of how you can leverage the benefit of market insight for effective strategic decision making

Healthcare reform is upon us - finally, get the essential payer perspective to understand the future market

• Understand new legislation: who's covered and what price increases to expect
• The payer environment is evolving - get BCBSA perspectives on reimbursement
• Find out about the new insurance mechanisms being used for those covered by the proposed framework

Back to Basics - an extended interactive session to develop forecasting skills and techniques with the pros

• Keep forecast models simple to improve department efficiency and usefulness for management by ensuring the forecasting achieves its purpose, the mathematics are 'clean' and understandable
• Improve communication, raise stakeholder engagement and enhance the decision making process and develop forecasts for a multiple stakeholder environment
• Evaluate your in-house forecasting tools to see how you can amplify your accuracy and reliability - not all forecasts can be conducted on excel. Find out more about the tools you can use and how you should validate previous forecasting models periodically to ensure you avoid errors in future

Advanced Modelling Techniques and Considerations

Achieve greater granularity in your forecasting with patient-flow analysis PFA

• With better patient level data available in more locations - see how PFA can provide insight for your strategic and promotional decision making, especially with patent expiration
• Balance accuracy with confidence in the results - PFA can easily suffer from too many assumptions when trying to model every single dynamic of the decision making process
• Understand when PFA is effective and when it isn't to optimise the use of your resources

Monte Carlo modelling - get true market insight by investing in simulation modelling

• Finite scenario modelling can often provide an unrealistic impression of the market - use simulations to find answers to situations like 'what if the market experienced stringent price controls?'
• Use it to mitigate risk and uncertainty in your forecasting to help decision makers
• Reduce confidence intervals to an acceptable level, rather than at a point that harms your credibility

Patent expiration and generic erosion rates - the Achilles heel of blockbusters: model outcomes for potential product life-extending solutions

• Investigate techniques used by previous expired molecules such as 'Chiral switches' or combination therapies to see what benefit it could apply to your product
• Better incorporate generic erosion rates into your forecasts and learn when to use conjoint analysis vs. uptake curves
• Get the latest updates on biosimilars regulation and whether you should be expecting it to cause attrition in biologic sales

Better Utilise Data and Market Research

Forecasting for business development: Driving good decisions to expand your pipeline

• Evaluate the full landscape in emerging therapy areas for new assets and technology
• Rapidly build forecasts to aid go / no-go decisions for target assets: "quick casting"
• Strike a balance between the number of forecasts to be created and the level of rigor provided
• Efficiently leverage primary and secondary resources

Elevate your primary market research effectivenesset cutting edge industry tips on doing it better

• Find out how you can use Web 2.0 sites such as Sermo and WebMD to connect with physicians and understand their opinions alongside gauging their awareness of your product
• Reduce the threat to your forecast accuracy with solid share assumptions - important, even if experienced forecasters can create robust models that precisely depict the historical market
• Learn about the forecasting implications of marketing research design from KOL interviews to conjoint studies so that you can make the right choice
• Explore the pros and cons of various approaches to adjusting shares derived from primary marketing research

Reduce uncertainty in your R&D pipeline forecasts

• Identify gaps of each asset using appropriate model to gain the insights into the risk compositions; learn about critical path activities for optimized decision making
• Identify correlated risks in R&D assets for the optimal return of the investment portfolio
• Manage uncertainties in the expected return - identify the intrinsic value of an R&D asset

Emerging Markets - No Longer ROW

Optimise your use of scarce epidemiological data in emerging markets

• Improve your market awareness by finding out how teams dedicated to emerging markets are conducting their forecasts
• Get the data you need by seeing how global health alliances are collating epidemiology from these markets
• Find out about the right tools to make the most of your patient level data when working in economies that lack patient registration schemes

Emerging markets - are they big enough to make an impact?

• Join an exclusive panel to hear why some pharma companies are still uncertain about moving into emerging markets
• Find out what pharma stands to gain in markets that still have poor IP controls and weak healthcare infrastructures
• Hear the considerations behind why companies are offshoring R&D and manufacturing to these markets and how to manage the trade-off between economic benefit and concerns over API quality

relegate or incorporate old forecasting Models?

We're not in Kansas anymore - the new reality of pharma

• Understand why the 4 Ps of marketing (Product, Price, Promotion and Place) are no longer sufficient to create an effective forecast and market a product
• Account for the regulatory environment and end- user to improve the relevance of your forecast by including 6 additional Ps (Payers, Providers, Patients, Payments, Policy, and the Public)
• Reduce errors by realizing that standard models and historical analogs can no longer hold true under these conditions

Stop unnecessary costs now: Realise that market transformation has only proved that older forecasting patterns work

• Learn about how, in the midst of regulatory reformations and change forecasting still relies on old patterns that you can utilise through historical examples
• Understand what this means for your older order of entry models, profile models etc. before you allocate resources to build new ones
• Adopt a system that will help you learn from previous forecast successes and failures so that you remain efficient

Forecasting for Advanced Therapeutics and Niche Treatments

Learn what market factors are causing pharma to pursue niche opportunities

• Get insight into whether niche business models are a viable strategy or only successful as an exception
• Learn how a niche is defined and what you should be using as your go/no go criteria
• Utilise historical evidence and understand key drivers for success: Generate strong revenue whilst limiting development and sales costs to promote positive NPV

The future of biologics - hear realistic counter-arguments for developing advanced therapies

• Find out if patients will continue to pay for expensive therapies or whether some disease areas are becoming price-elastic
• Assess developing markets to see if the necessary infrastructure and access to advanced therapies exist
• Ensure you account for the potential 'threat' of biosimilars cannibalising sales volumes in the future

Connect Your Different Levels of Forecasting

Drive regional and global forecasts ensuring business objectives are tied and strategy is robust

• See the considerations applied to a local level forecast and how they match up with global strategy
• Understand the benefits of ensuring forecasts are conducted in synergy with other teams
• Identify ways that you can open up channels for collaboration and improve overall efficiency

Discover what decision makers are looking for in your s&oP to improve demand and supply relationships

• Learn about the value of CPFR in examples that will help you understand the value it could bring to your S&OP
• Implement your forecasts into pull processes so you can avoid unnecessary and excessive inventories associated with push systems
• Avoid critical instances where inline forecast reports from multiple-affiliates has affected the decision making process