An Introduction to Strategic Forecasting in the Pharmaceutical Industry

A 2-day, in-person, interactive, case-study based training
@Leonardo Royal Hotel, St. Pauls, London from 12–13th June, 2025

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Course Objectives

Strategy and Value Optimisation meets Forecasting in this course. Rather than viewing forecasts as static figures, you’ll learn to use forecasting models as dynamic, strategic tools.

This includes assessing a range of potential indications at very early stages of development, and creating a variety of competitor, TPP, market or other scenarios, with the objective of optimizing the value of an asset within its life cycle.

In the very early clinical stages of an asset, essential questions need to be asked, such as:

  • Which indications to pursue?
  • Which patient segments to focus on?
  • How to take an asset forward?

When Go/No Go decisions are being made, managing risk and prioritising resources involves asking questions such as:

  • What are the key uncertainties for my asset?
  • Which parameters have the biggest impact on peak sales and NPV?
  • How to best leverage these parameters to maximise the opportunity?

Market pressures such as increased competition, LoE, the US IRA and lately geopolitical factors such as US tariffs require not only faster development and decision making, but also more certainty and robust analysis supporting key development decisions.

Understanding the disease area and market dynamics shapes your forecasting model, which becomes the central tool for quantifying strategies and guiding decisions. Without this, there’s no foundation for sound decision-making. Strategy and forecasting increasingly merge into a single, critical role across cross-functional teams and in BD and investment environments.

Today, it’s not just forecasters, insights teams, or value leads who drive value optimisation. Business development, licensing teams, investors, market research, and competitive intelligence professionals all play key roles in this integrated approach. This combined institutional knowledge and experience translates into competitive advantage in busy markets.

Over two in-person days, this course will show you how strategic forecasting can unlock greater value for your organisation – whether you’re in biotech, a small or medium-sized enterprise (SME), big pharma, or in an investment firm.

Note: Basic Excel and forecasting knowledge is helpful, but advanced expertise is not required.

  1. How to inform strategic decisions at pre-IND stage through commercial assessments
  2. Expand the forecast framework, challenge key parameters and maximize the opportunity for a mid-stage asset
  3. Identify value drivers in your forecast funnel, market and competitor scenarios and manage uncertainties
  4. Implement strategic considerations and enhance your forecast models and visual outputs
  5. Defend and challenge forecast assumptions in a cross-functional team context, with the objective of maximizing an opportunity and increasing the probability of success
  6. Shape the future rather than just predicting it – and in the process develop viable commercial assets

Business insight executives, forecasters, MR and New Product Planning professionals who want to expand their skills and apply more strategic thinking to their role.

BD/licensing and investor individuals who like to become more creative in value maximisation.

Life sciences professionals, scientists and other stakeholders, who like to understand better how commercial thinking can be applied to their asset and industry.

Good to know: The course has been designed with the aim that the participant can directly apply the learnings to a range of assets and indications when back at their organisation. groupH will make a Cheat Sheet available to every participant listing common value drivers across different therapy areas.

Course participants will receive briefing materials 2 – 3 weeks ahead of the course, covering 2 real-world case studies describing the strategic forecasting opportunities of two assets at different stages of development and in different indications. These briefing materials will describe indication and commercial environments, and may cover examples of business insights from patient, physician or payer research or competitor analysis.

Thursday 12th June – 9am to 5pm

Day 1: Morning

  1. Introductions
  2. What is strategic forecasting?
  3. Brief overview of the most commonly used frameworks in value creation, forecasting and scenario planning, such as score cards, peak sales, NPV vs. eNPV, OoE, differential analysis (scores and weights) etc.
  4. The toolkit of a strategy consultant, including uncertainty / impact matrix, commercial attractiveness vs. technical risks, tips & tricks

Day 1: Afternoon

Case Study 1 – Technology X, Indication Assessment Framework

  1. Setting the scene by developing value propositions, prioritizing indications and considering insights from R&D
  2. Base case value propositions, TPP vs. enhanced TPP
  3. Break-out groups:
    • Identifying strategic options for an asset or a range of asset-scenarios
    • Quantifying possible strategic options
  4. Team discussion & decision making
  5. Demonstration of groupH deliverable, with model enhancements and suggested visual outputs

Day 1: Evening (Optional)

Networking dinner in the vicinity of the hotel

Friday 13th June – 9am to 3.30pm

Day 2: Morning

Case Study 2 – Product X TPP, Assumption Matrix and Forecast Model

  1. Setting the scene with a pipeline analysis, an insightful piece of patient MR, and outputs from a market access or a scenario planning workshop
  2. Developing and prioritizing strategic options
  3. Break-out groups
  4. Identifying strategic options for key value drivers
  5. Quantifying possible strategic options working with Excel
  6.  Team discussion & decision making
  7. Demonstration of groupH deliverable, with model enhancements and suggested visual outputs

Day 2: Afternoon

  1. The use of Tools (Tricks & Tips)
  2. Defend & Challenge your Forecast (The Human Side of Forecasting)
  3. Summary and Key Learnings
  4. Wrap Up

£2,250 exc. VAT and £2,000 exc. VAT (Early Bird)

The early bird offer will end on 12th May.

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Terms and Conditions >

Training venue:

Leonardo Royal London St. Paul’s
10 Godliman Street
London, EC4V 5AJ
United Kingdom

Training date:

Thursday 12th and Friday 13th June, 2025

Use the code GROUPH2025 for a 12% discount on the best available rate for the bedrooms, when booking via the Leonardo Royal St. Pauls website.

Attendees can book using this code up till 7 days prior to check in date.

Terms and Conditions >

We call on a comprehensive toolkit of methodologies and services to deliver these insights from gold standard research techniques to proprietary tools that we have developed ourselves.

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