Differentiating Can Be Delicate: What is the best strategy for a life sciences company to address, “the competition”?
Discover how to “stake your claim” while staying positive
Standing out in the competitive world of life sciences innovation makes it necessary to differentiate yourself from potential competition whether it’s the current standard of care, other drugs within the same class or those utilizing a different mechanism. In establishing this unique profile, both the manner and tone by which you choose to characterize others can leave a lasting impression on investors.
Though it is tempting to (and investors will often try to inducet it) highlight the limitations and risks of others, the most effective strategy for differentiation is rooted in positively staking your own claim without directly denigrating others. Below are some thoughts on how to avoid “going negative,” when addressing the competitive landscape.
Frame the Key Unmet Need - Next generation drugs take over when they offer meaningful improvements to patients. These benefits can come in many forms. Start by explaining all the ways you are uniquely positioned to make health and overall quality of life better in ways that no one else can.
Cheerlead for the Class - Wish your MOA peers success. Differentiating between positive results within your class is a far better position to be in than explaining why they missed, but you won’t.
Faint Praise Instead of Insults for Others - A few muted compliments can create as many questions in investors’ minds as one direct zinger, while preserving your impartiality.
Let the Investors Find the Risks - Investors are trained to be skeptics, so use their inherent programming to your advantage. The ideal way to create unresolved questions for investors about other programs is to lead them down the path to draw their own conclusions instead of drawing them yourself.
Keep Speculation to a Minimum - Inevitably, you will be asked to directly assess a competitive program’s chances of success. Take a pass, wish them well and take another opportunity to articulate your strengths and the problem you can solve for patients.
Effectively standing out from the crowd is, of course, at the core of all IR strategies.
Doing so in a way the emphasizes your strengths without aggressively highlighting the risk of others can accomplish this goal while also preserving credibility and not inviting reciprocal critiques from your competitors.