Why would you need a product strategy in biopharma, or a product strategist (aka a “New Product Planning”, or NPP person)? These are related, but different questions. I’ll address the second one first. If you work in, say, Fast Fashion, product innovation may look something like this: “marketing person sees something trending on TikTok, Slacks manufacturing person about it and twelve days later, the cute top is ready to ship”. No need for a NPP person there. Not so in biopharma, for two main reasons: (i) Rarely can you “order a new product” in biopharma, especially an innovative one. Biology is slippery, R&D is hard. So, the way it works is this: Research folks tinker for years with “interesting stuff” that may, or may not ever be therapeutically useful. Occasionally, a half-formed therapeutic concept strays out of the lab, stumbling in the general direction of a medical need. But it won’t find its way there unaided. As the NPP person, in my role of “product strategist”, I’ll nudge the program towards a product that actual patients might use, actual physicians might prescribe, and actual payers might pay for (ii) Product development is mind-numbingly long, three or four average professional half-lives’-worth. Neither the original marketing person in this fable, nor the first scientist to pipette on the problem will be around to see the product reach the market. Meanwhile, who will nurse the program during its long infancy, before marketing folks pay it any mind? Me, the NPP person, in my role of “commercial steward”. Now to the first question: do you need a product strategy at all? – not always. You could be a big pharma muscling through with opportunistic buys, including of entire companies with de-risked assets; or, at the other end of the spectrum, you could be a gee-whiz biotech company, only aiming for a “proof-of-technology”, followed by a rewarding exit. In which scenario, whether the product would be therapeutically useful is someone else’s concern And what if the get-rich-(fairly) quick scheme doesn’t play out? (say, if financial markets are not friendly, ahem!). Don’t you wish you had had a product strategy, way back then? Product strategy: better to have one. And a product strategist or two, to make it happen.