New Product Forecasting In The Pharmaceutical Industry

NeW ProdUCT ForeCAsTING IN THe PHArMACeUTICAl INdUsTrY By George Foldes As forecasters, we all make our careers from connecting a series of dots with a line and then project it into the future. We do all of this under the assumption that, if all else remains the same, historical trends are predictive of what is to come. In other words, if nothing changes in the environment, why should the current trends change? Using the latest and greatest statistical packages, whether Excel based or full enterprise solutions, we draw the straight lines, calculate the statistical variances and probabilities, and go through complicated processes to incorporate seasonality and other variables. We do this day in and day out, and are quite comfortable in our abilities. However, when it comes to new product forecasting, our confidence is shaken. We do not have those series of dots to connect, no past history of seasonality and other variances on which to base our projections. This is what intimidates us. We have to realize that all these make preparing a forecast a little bit more difficult, if not impossible. We need to use a whole new series of our competencies. The ideal new product ...