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BCG Partners with Merck
We are proud to announce a strategic collaboration with Merck aimed at advancing the discovery and assessment of novel drug targets for chronic and degenerative diseases through AI.
How We Enable Biopharma Excellence
We support clients in every aspect of biopharma excellence, including strategy, operations, and transformation. Increasingly, this means focusing on digital, data, and analytics, which are driving change throughout the biopharma value chain. BCG provides biopharma sector companies with custom solutions drawn from our deep knowledge of both digital and the industry. Our experts include an extensive group of PhDs and advanced-degree holders in biopharma industry-related disciplines with significant pre-consulting industry experience.
R&D Innovation
The pandemic spurred adoption of digital and data analytics to improve R&D efficiency, including the use of virtual trials and AI to discover new drugs. We help clients allocate R&D resources and optimize the value of assets in their development pipeline across a variety of specialties, including oncology.
Next-Generation Commercial Models
BCG brings unrivaled go-to-market knowledge, experience, and capabilities to leading biopharma and biotech companies. Our biopharma consultants collaborate with both market leaders and market innovators to address the toughest go-to-market challenges, including maximizing the value of products and portfolios; evolving go-to-market models and optimizing investments; driving superior performance across cross-functional teams; and identifying opportunities to leverage technology to create competitive advantage.
- Asset and Portfolio Strategy. Our biopharma consulting experts help clients maximize product performance through launch, brand acceleration, portfolio strategy, and due diligence. We’ve successfully influenced brand and portfolio trajectories across a wide range of therapeutic areas.
- Operating Model. The need to reinvent biopharma and biotech commercial models is urgent due to shorter timelines, rising costs, technological advances, and changes in how health care is practiced. We accelerate the shift to customer- and patient-centric models—and do so with a focus on talent and change management.
- Performance Excellence. Achieving exceptional results in cross-functional models begins with performance excellence. As the health care landscape continues to rapidly evolve, leaders must adapt quickly and decisively. Our biopharma consulting experts guide the change agenda across functional areas, driving enterprise-wide success and impact.
- Technology and Data Enablement. AI and GenAI hold unparalleled potential, but effective implementation is key. Our biopharma consultants bring cutting-edge expertise to define and execute our clients’ change agendas, ensuring that they are able to capture the full value of these technologies across their go-to-market models.
Meet our Commercial Experts
Excellence in Operations
For companies that provide biopharma manufacturing solutions, operations play a major role in their mission of delivering life-enhancing medicines. We collaborate with clients to improve operations—using customized solutions for manufacturing, supply chains, and distribution and logistics—while maintaining and improving product quality and adhering to industry regulations.
Corporate Finance, Strategy, and M&A
In an evolving biopharma industry, players must continuously monitor where the market is headed—along with the strength of their product portfolio—in order to determine which alliances or M&A activity to pursue, which assets are noncore and ripe for divestiture, and how to ensure effective post-merger integration. Our product portfolio strategies extend to the group, business unit, and therapeutic-area level.
Digital and Analytics Capabilities
In addition to working with companies to bring new drugs to market faster by applying AI and machine learning, BCG helps biopharma sector companies improve performance in manufacturing and supply chains by using data analytics to enhance decision making and uncover insights. We teach companies how to incorporate digital into sales, marketing, and customer engagement, and use analytics to identify the M&A and new technology options that could complement their existing product portfolio.
Our biopharma consultants work closely BCG’s specialty businesses on specific value-chain priorities, including digital supply chain, next-generation sales, personalization, and digital marketing. With our guidance, companies can rapidly scale new capabilities and ways of working through agile at scale, data and digital platforms, and our Build-Operate-Transfer approach. We also collaborate with technologists, scientists, programmers, engineers, and human-centered designers from BCG X, our tech build and design unit.
Our Client Work in the Biopharma Industry
Production Network Transformation. We guided a biopharma company through a multiyear transformation of its client network, production system, and supply model. The transformation included realigning site roles, combining portfolios, and pruning SKUs. It resulted in overall savings of more than $1.5 billion.
Increased Customer Engagement. At a major pharma company, topline growth for a previously underperforming product jumped 50% in a year after BCG used CRM, payer data, and other analytics to assess its promotional efforts and improve customer engagement.
R&D Innovation Strategy. We worked with a biopharma company to develop a holistic cell and gene therapy strategy. By collaborating, we identified entry points, current capabilities, possible M&A options, and needed investments, and created a high-level business plan.
Disease Management Platform. BCG X partnered with a global pharmaceutical company to launch a platform for patients with inflammatory bowel disease, providing live daily data to clinicians and medical researchers, and allowing for better treatment and drug development.
Client Success
How BCG used a cascaded and holistic organization-design approach to help a global biotech firm reduce its gross labor and non-labor costs by 20%.
Video
February 23, 2024
Harnessing AI to Accelerate Clinical Trials
As many herald a new “golden era” of medicine, one roadblock remains: the daunting complexity of conducting clinical trials. Syneos Health saw the enormous potential AI held when it came to accelerating the process. Baba Shetty, President of Technology & Data Solutions at Syneos Health, explains how BCG X helped them pave the way.
Our Proprietary Biopharma Solutions
Integrated into our biopharma industry solutions are an array of proprietary tools, including benchmarks, databases, and other knowledge assets. Some highlights:
Tool
Tool
Disease Deep Dive Navigator
Disease Deep Dive Navigator provides market intelligence, tracking activities by therapy, company, R&D pipeline, and clinical trials.
Disease Deep Dive Navigator
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Tool
Biopharma M&A Suite
The Biopharma M&A Suite is a series of tools that identify potential matches between products and a company's portfolio and capabilities.
Biopharma M&A Suite
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Tool
BCOMM Benchmark
The BCOMM Benchmark tracks key European and US industry metrics to help clients optimize structure, productivity, and resource allocation.
BCOMM Benchmark
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Tool
External Supply Benchmark
The External Supply Benchmark tracks outsourcing metrics, covering portfolios, performance, operation models, and tech transfers.
External Supply Benchmark
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Yield Optimization Tool Model
The Yield Optimization Tool uses sensor data and machine learning to predict and optimize biopharma manufacturing yield.
Yield Optimization Tool Model
Real-Time Demand Forecasting
Real-Time Demand Forecasting—part of Data Intelligence AI by BCG X—detects rapid demand shifts, enabling dynamic planning.
Real-Time Demand Forecasting
Our Insights on the Biopharma Industry
Slideshow
June 16, 2025
Omnichannel can drive real results—but most biopharma and medtech companies struggle with execution. It’s time to close the gap between ambition and action.
Article
May 29, 2025
How do companies design a fit-for-purpose model that combines the best attributes of big and small pharma, biotech, venture capital, and tech company approaches?
Video
January 21, 2025
The Biopharma Trends Defining Innovation and Growth
Sabrina Kristic shares insights on how generative AI, groundbreaking therapies, and market-specific challenges are shaping the future of Europe's biopharmaceutical sector—and why growth strategies must adapt to evolving pressures.
Article
February 20, 2025
Demand-centric growth is a proven, data-based methodology that enables brand marketers to identify the most promising sources of growth. Applying it in biopharma can create significant value.
Article
February 18, 2025
The industry’s ability to unlock the next wave of innovation and to continue its strong record of shareholder returns is at risk.
Article
January 8, 2025
The companies that thrive will focus on their core areas to drive innovation and efficiency while accelerating speed and agility.
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