The Product Compound: product for biopharma people

TL;DR

Drug discovery, like tech product development involves teams of diverse people building solutions for complex problems.

Product managers have evolved in the tech world to be the stewards of these problems and solutions.

Designing and delivering solutions for complex drug discovery problems can be made substantially more effective and efficient by embedding product managers in drug discovery teams.

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Most people working in drug discovery in pharma and biotech haven’t encountered a product manager (PM), a product designer or the practice of product management in their regular work. Those who have, though, will have experienced the considerable value that a product person can bring to their team and its work. As the world of drug discovery becomes increasingly entwined with the tech world, elements of the two are uniting: culture, ways of working and the understanding of how to tackle complex problems are notable examples. The guiding philosophy underlying this union is the need for a clearly defined problem and for a flexible path to its solution.

The problems tackled by drug discovery teams are grounded in human biology and are therefore inherently complex. Which drug target should we prioritise? What data support this therapeutic hypothesis? What is the best drug modality with which to modulate the target? Which patients are most likely to benefit from this new drug? They are problems best addressed by a multi-professional team of people from diverse disciplines spanning clinical science, molecular biology, genomics, computational biology, machine learning, epidemiology and medicinal chemistry. We therefore have a powerful combination of important and challenging problems, and a diverse team who seek to solve them.

So what is product management and how can it help drug discovery?

That question is best answered by describing what a PM does in the context of a drug discovery team. A traditional working model for a drug discovery team is to ‘follow the science’ - an evolving path of hypotheses and experiments, often loosely guided by an intent to find new drugs in one or more diseases, but usually with little by way of structure, prioritisation and introspection in the team’s work. This is where the PM can make a difference.

Defining the problem

Drug discovery teams, whether in a small biotech, a multinational pharma or companies in between, typically have a loose common understanding of their purpose. “We’re a rare disease company”, “We’re seeking new medicines to prevent heart disease”, “Our focus is immuno-oncology”. In order to focus the team’s time, effort and money on the most effective solution, the true problem that the team seeks to solve must be tightly and clearly defined, and that definition agreed and backed by the whole team. This provides the guiding star for the team in formulating their best solution. The definition of the problem is informed by both the team itself and - crucially - by the needs of those who will act on the team’s output, which might be data, decisions, recommendations or some combination of the three; that combination can be thought of as the team’s ‘product’. Those needs, which are termed ‘user requirements’ in the tech world, have a notable primacy for the team - drug discovery is the beginning of a long, risky and expensive process of drug development and ensuring the first step is designed to meet the needs of the steps downstream is vital to a successful solution.

This is where the PM has their first impact. The PM, working with the team, leads the gathering and understanding of the ‘user requirements’. For example, the company strategy team want a new long-acting drug to treat ulcerative colitis, the clinical development team want a drug that can be given as a tablet, the non-clinical safety team want a drug that does not cause side effects in the central nervous system. The PM gathers and refines these requirements to formulate the definition of the problem that the team will seek to solve. That is not to say that the definition is a perpetually fixed and immovable one. Indeed, it is the PM’s responsibility to be in frequent contact with the ‘users’ to identify where their needs have evolved and then work with the team to refine the problem accordingly.

By establishing the nature of the problem to be solved at the outset of its work, the team avoids that most dangerous and wasteful of situations: having built a solution which finds itself in search of a problem. The problem always comes first and the team’s mission is to find the best solution. And, in drug discovery, there is no shortage of problems.

Formulating and refining the solution

Armed with an understanding of the problem to be solved, the PM leads the team in defining the solution. The solution is also not a fixed entity, but is in a constant process of evolution as the team develop, review and refine it in service of the problem. 

Here is perhaps the starkest contrast between project management and product management. Project management typically employs a ‘waterfall’ model of planning, whereby the steps considered at the start of the project to be necessary for its completion are laid out in sequence and tackled in order within a predetermined time envelope. In that model there is little if any place for adaptation and refinement beyond adjusting the timeline. The power of the PM lies in their use of an ‘agile’ mode of planning. Here, the work necessary for successful tackling of the problem is established by the PM together with the team along the following lines:

• What are the tasks that need to be done to achieve a successful solution?

• What order do the tasks need to be done in? i.e. what dependencies are there between tasks?

• What are the highest priority tasks that need to be done soonest? 

This is the team’s ‘roadmap’.

The PM is the glue within the team and the bridge builder beyond the team

There is something powerful yet intangible about the presence of a PM in a drug discovery team. The PM may not be a subject matter expert in the scientific area the team works in (although many excellent PMs come to product management from a background in the life sciences), but their understanding of the team’s ‘why’ and their integral position within the team lends a strength to their connection with the team members. I have worked in teams with PMs who act as a strong cohesive force within a team of diverse expertise and personalities, which has a clear positive impact on the team’s productivity and sense of collective purpose.

How does product management differ from project management?

See What is Product Management? | Definition + Resources (productplan.com)