The client was interested in acquiring a pharma company. Multiple global and country-specific databases were mined to select over 200 possible targets based on predefined criteria - companies with revenues of USD 100-500mn, with established proprietary or branded generic products that were sold in more than one country (US, Europe, Japan, Brazil, China, Korea). Further research was done to establish ownership details and financials for the previous three years.

A diabetes therapeutic firm wanted to assess a competitor's recently launched disposable insulin pen. A combination of mystery shopping and in-depth interviews with ex-employees, production executives, supply chain partners and industry analysts helped gather intelligence on the product features (technical aspects and usage); manufacturing process (suppliers for each component, product assembly process, current & planned capacity, commercial partners abroad); and the countries in which the product was expected to be launched in the next few years.

The project, based exclusively on secondary research, involved creating a list of biotech and pharma companies based in California, along with their capabilities. The focus was on firms with capabilities related to translation research (pharmacokinetics, quantitative modelling, pharmacodynamics), diagnostics (for patient selection/ stratification), medical devices, and mobile health (health apps, wearables for health/wellness tracking).