Case study: How scenario testing helped assess demand for a brand launch in the fragmented NSCLC market

The research was complicated by the fact that both the clients (and likely key future competitors’), profile was as yet unknown – the research therefore needed to assess likely share while taking account of multiple moving parts.

The solution
The research consisted of 3 phases of research that spanned US, EU and Japan.

1) An initial quantitative phase to provide initial insight into the current NSCLC treatment landscape and evaluate potential for the client’s product versus new competitors based on ‘best-guesses’ of each profile. A monadic design was used in order to understand and compare potential uptake of both a moderate and a strong efficacy profile of the client’s product.

2) A mini-qualitative phase was conducted after the initial quantitative phase to better understand reactions to each of the profiles (both client and competitor), better understand the impact of changing efficacy data, and get a read on emerging data (safety profile) as new data from clinical trials became available.

3) The initial quantitative stage was repeated as data from the key new competitor profile became publically available at conference (better efficacy than anticipated) in order to revisit the results and assess the potential impact on our client’s product’s predicted share.

The outputs
Findings from the research were used in order to inform the commercialisation opportunity for our client’s product and provide guidance on likely future market (preference) share. The research took account of a number of unknowns in both our client’s and competitor profiles – allowing the client to model potential future scenarios (best case / worst case / base case). The insights allowed them to evaluate the impact of the launch sequence in order to help inform the go / no-go decision for one key asset and provide a steer on likely uptake for a number of pipeline assets in this highly competitive space.