More than any industry, life sciences companies are under a lot of pressure to develop new and innovative therapies. Time-limited patent protection followed by a threat of sales slump through generic and biosimilar competition being some of the major reasons. This creates a pressing need to accelerate Research & Development (R&D) timelines. However, operating in a highly complex and regulated industry, companies can only work on making their R&D pipelines efficient and portfolio decisions data backed to reduce the drug development timelines.

Along with an effective R&D pipeline management life sciences organizations also need proactive risk management, to actively identify risks and take quick mitigation measures (merger/ acquisition) in case of sudden market/ competitor activity. To accomplish this, decision makers at each level, right from strategic decision makers to functional project level leaders need to have a comprehensive view of the project/ portfolio progress, and quick access to critical metrics such as IRR, eNPV, NPV, etc.

However, most pharma and biotech companies struggle with effective data usage and achieving a comprehensive view of the portfolio due to lack of a centralized data source; data residing in various forms and systems, leading to mistrust in data, and delayed decisions.

From strategic decisions such as project prioritization to functional tactics such as resource allocation, data-backed decisions are always accurate and proved to be effective.

Identifying this need, i2e Consulting sulting designed and developed the i2e Executive Portfolio Dashboard solution – This is a project portfolio and forecasting solution which is made fit-for-purpose for the life sciences industry.

Why do life sciences organizations need the Executive Portfolio Dashboard solution when there are project management tools in the market?

Project management tools like Planisware can also automate NPV (Net Present Value), eNPV (expected Net Present Value), and IRR (Internal Rate of Return) calculations; however, often these tools include built-in financial modeling features that integrate cost, revenue, and risk data to compute such metrics dynamically from the project and portfolio data available within Planisware. So, they are designed to support decision-making by providing insights into project and portfolio financial performance only.

For life sciences organizations, calculating NPV, eNPV and IRR requires additional data from Clinical Trial Management Systems (CTMS), Enterprise Resource Planning systems (ERPs), and market analysis to address industry-specific complexities such as long development cycles, high R&D costs, and regulatory hurdles.

i2e’s executive portfolio dashboard framework complements the existing project management tools and provides more nuanced and actionable insights beyond standard calculations.

Executive Portfolio Dashboard- What is it? And how it can immensely help the life sciences organizations

With over a decade of experience with the life sciences R&D project portfolio management, i2e designed and developed an Executive Portfolio Dashboard solution which is designed to bridge the gap between data and data backed strategic portfolio management.

Our fully customizable framework comes with a pre-built template that consists of

  • A data storage system- To store all the data integrated from various data sources and systems. The framework is flexible enough to facilitate usage of some of the popular databases such as MySQL, AWS, Google Big Query, Amazon S3, dDatabricks, Google Cloud, etc.
  • i2e’s proprietary layer- This layer consists of data connectors and a data warehouse (here also there is provision to use popular data warehouses such as Amazon RedShift, Azure Synapse Analytics, Google Big Query, Snowflake). This layer will provide the necessary KPIs (NPV, eNPV, IRR, etc) based on the stakeholder’s requirements.
  • Analytics and visualization layer- The proprietary layer is then connected to this layer for creating reports and custom dashboards. This layer also has advanced analytics and forecasting capabilities to generate alternative scenarios and what-if analysis.

The advantages with i2e’s Executive Portfolio Dashboard

One common issue most pharma company face is the lack of a single source truth (regarding the portfolio performance) for the stakeholders to quickly check and take data-backed decisions. This could be because the data needed to estimate the portfolio health and calculate the crucial commercial forecasts is often residing in multiple data formats and systems making it difficult to produce a single point of view.

Life sciences companies are trying to fill the gap either by deploying a point solution or custom build projects. Although point solutions can give immediate relief, they may not be robust enough to scale and adapt to new challenges. Even though custom solutions are tailor-made, the timelines surrounding do not persist long enough to deliver a robust solution. This is where i2e’s Executive Portfolio Dashboard makes a difference, it is a unique solution bringing the best of both point solutions along with the customizing capabilities of custom solutions.

i2e’s Executive Portfolio Dashboard solution can automate data integration, aggregation and summarization to produce a comprehensive dashboard of all crucial metrics pertaining to the projects for easy stakeholder’s consumption. The proprietary layer is designed to provide crucial financial and operational metrics such as project delivery milestone dates, development cost forecast, and revenue forecasts, with appropriate risk adjustments based on Probability of Technical and Regulatory Success (PTRS) and potential market events.

The insights gathered through the Executive Portfolio Dashboard has helped life sciences organizations in

  • Maintaining a consistent valuation criterion to determine which investments to accelerate, adjust or abandon.
  • Providing a comprehensive view on the impact of cost, timing and value on portfolio performance.
  • Performing proactive risk adjustments on short-term and long-term forecasts.
  • Achieving accurate and effective portfolio prioritization based on comprehensive data analysis.
  • Availing timely decision making in eliminating the risk of leaving low-value initiatives in the portfolio mix for too long.
  • Gaining ability to consider alternative scenarios for new investments.

i2e’s Executive Portfolio Dashboard solution’s framework is completely customizable to adopt and scale to the specific requirements of the life sciences organizations of any size. Some of the unique features are that it is quick to deploy, offers customizations in terms of tech stack and can be integrated with existing databases and systems. The solution is a complete data analysis pipeline and visualization solution. Business logic is created on life sciences PPM data to make sure of the desired output. Along with the framework, the output (dashboard) is also completely customizable, giving more control and freedom to the end user.

How i2e’s Executive Dashboard solution can impact the drug R&D development cycles

  • Our Executive Portfolio Dashboard Solution helps in maximizing portfolio value and improves executive decision making. It helps life sciences leadership to take long term decisions based on data available and accelerates the availability of life saving therapies. This can lead to improved patient outcomes and access to new therapies.
  • With a 360-degree view of the portfolio and other crucial metrics, decision makers can make sure the projects and portfolios are in alignment with the organizational goals.
  • Such a view also helps in taking accurate data-backed decisions when it comes to project selection or prioritization, as well as allocate resources to the projects that might bring a bigger strategic impact.
  • Our solution can help life sciences companies prioritize R&D efforts towards areas with the most significant unmet medical needs. This can lead to the development of treatment options/therapies for currently ignored/unprioritized disease areas.
  • By helping executives avoid blind spots, it paves way for increasing confidence in data and moving from gut-based instincts to evidence-based decisions.
  • With a comprehensive view of all the metrics and portfolio performance readily available, life sciences organizations can proactively manage risks be it internal or external.

i2e’s Executive Portfolio Dashboard solution is a one-of-a-kind solution that fills a critical gap in life sciences project portfolio management. The ready to deploy framework is not only customizable but also saves a lot of solutioning time for the large and small organizations. The uniqueness of the solution coupled with our life sciences data and PPM expertise, organizations can have a quick and easy solution to their business needs.