Abolon Consulting (“Abolon”) professionals focus on the industry they know best: Healthcare. We work for Clients in all Healthcare Sectors in a range of Functional Practices, depending on the expertise required in a particular situation.
The Healthcare Sectors we serve are (in alphabetic order)
In the following, we describe how we support Clients in these Sectors.
Animal Health
We help Clients increase the effectiveness of their marketed portfolios of drugs and formulations for (food and companion) animals. For Clients engaged in human and animal pharmaceutical R&D, we explore animal markets for human products. Given the fragmentation of the Animal Health Sector and the importance of licensing transactions to ensure future growth, we support Clients on corporate (M&A and licensing) transactions. Due to margin pressure on human pharmaceutical businesses and lack of scale in the animal health sector, we predict increasing consolidation in the sector over the coming years.
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Biotechnology
After many years of abundant public and venture capital for biotechnology companies, funding has become a major issue for the majority of players. Together with biotechnology Clients, we develop acquisition and licensing strategies taking into account the Client’s funding situation. Abolon has deep expertise in the positioning of biotechnology companies with both public and private investors – our professionals have invested a combined EUR 108mn of equity in the Healthcare sector in previous careers – and advise Clients on how to approach investors and how to manage available funds while building an overall track record that will appeal to public markets in view of a future IPO.
After the mapping of the human genome had been completed a steep increase in the output of new drugs from pharmaceutical R&D had been expected that yet has to materialize. With insight into technologies and therapeutic advances, we are able to help biotechnology companies develop sound corporate and R&D strategies.
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Diagnostics
We help Clients to evaluate growth opportunities becoming available from the ongoing consolidation in the industry, new biochemical technologies, biorecognition or regional expansion. The typically long and capital-intensive market introduction of new tests and diagnostics requires a sound evaluation of which products to develop, introduce and to allocate sales resources to. We observe potential for improvement in the industry’s capabilities to introduce new products: Many diagnostics players “waste” margin points as high investments (to overcome customers’ adoption barriers) do not sufficiently reduce time (to meaningful market penetration).
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Medical Devices and Technologies
Medical products range from commodity supply items to highly innovative cardiovascular products. We assist clients in identifying and pursuing new business areas, products and regions and advise on the acquisition of technologies and on M&A opportunities. We have also helped Clients to successfully differentiate their pricing structures in order to escape price pressure from customer purchasing groups.
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OTC Medicines
OTC drugs are increasingly paid privately rather than reimbursed in many countries. Also, competition is rising as more prescription drugs become available over the counter and more mid-sized companies expand internationally. With a good understanding of local regulatory environments, we assess the potential of switching prescription drugs to OTC status, evaluate regulatory and internal capability requirements and quantify the impact on prescription sales. We are convinced, OTC players need to review their pricing strategies and to more courageously exploit marketing & sales strategies historically pursued in consumer goods industries. Unlike public opinion, we see pricing upside for selected brands and products actually made possible by more restrictive reimbursement policies.
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Payors and Providers
With national healthcare budgets becoming increasingly tight and medical cost rising, payors and providers are under increasing pressure to monitor expenditure, improve processes and put pressure on suppliers to reduce prices. At the same time, they have limited degrees of freedom to compromise on the quality of medical care.
We help Clients to identify their expenditure, creatively identify business and process improvements and implement them. For the larger provider organizations, we evaluate growth options and other strategic opportunities. Based on our familiarity with national regulatory environments, we advise on topics ranging from marketing strategies (e.g., customer acquisition and retention programs, marketing channel strategy) to risk management (e.g., evaluating the impact of regulatory changes or product changes on performance).
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Prescription Pharmaceuticals
We historically have a strong background in working with Clients on corporate (M&A, JVs and alliances) and business development (licensing) transactions. We advise Clients on portfolio management and therapeutic areas, sales force effectiveness and regional business strategies. Because pipeline productivity has declined in spite of increased R&D investment and new launches are essential to strong future performance, we help Clients develop solid R&D strategies and help them to assess technology platforms. We also serve Clients on topics such as sales force management, global product launches, and life cycle management. In the generics sector, we focus on product launches, life cycle management and, with local insight into regulatory issues of individual regions, growth strategies besides advising on M&A and licensing transactions. As pharmaceutical margins come under pressure, Clients are increasingly eager to learn about purchasing and production strategies used and optimized in lower-margin industries like assembly and automotives.
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Service providers (e.g., CROs, medical laboratories)
We advise Clients on growth options (incl. M&A transactions) and operational improvements and evaluate changes in various regulatory environments. Our extensive insights into service providers’ customers allow us to focus on the development and improvement of the truly important USPs service providers have to offer in order to be successful.
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