For External Innovation,
Digital Health and BD Leads
What gets built around the molecule?
Your commercial model is changing whether it's planned for or not. We help pharma and medtech teams work out what the next one is — and what to build, license or partner to assemble it.
45 minutes to understand the question you're working on. Get a proposal, an indicative budget, and start dates.
Any of this looks familiar?
01
You have a partnership mandate, and the shortlist keeps arriving pre-filtered by which companies could survive the paperwork.
02
Pilots that were technically successful, and then quietly went nowhere once the project team dispersed.
03
The franchise plan still assumes the molecule stays the differentiator, and nobody particularly wants to be the one who questions that.
04
A competitor announced a partnership last quarter in a space your team had already looked at and passed on.
We have been there, and we know that
having an innovation process isn't the same as having a commercial answer — and what to do about it.
Context
The model that built
the industry is thinning.
Between 2014 and 2023, the top 20 pharmaceutical companies saw their share of FDA approvals fall from around 90% to 35%. Discovery moved outward — to biotech, to academic spinouts, to companies that didn't exist five years ago.
What large pharma retains is capital, regulatory capability, manufacturing scale, and commercial reach. Those remain formidable. They also point toward a different way of building the next decade of growth.
Most teams we work with already know this. The harder question is what to do about it — in a specific franchise, with specific assets, on a specific timeline.
$300bn
Annual drug sales exposed to loss of exclusivity by 2032
90% → 35%
Top-20 pharma share of FDA approvals, 2014 to 2023
30–70%
Sales a biologic typically loses within a year of biosimilar entryA crowded therapeutic area
Several clinically similar molecules competing for the same accounts. Nothing is expiring, and the drug alone has still stopped winning the conversation.
Pricing and access pressure
Payers increasingly ask what outcome is delivered beyond the molecule before agreeing a price. That question arrives well inside patent life.
A modality without a playbook
Cell and gene, RNA platforms, connected devices. The science is ahead of the organisation's ability to commercialise and support it.
Where value sits is moving.
The old model concentrated value in a protected molecule and defended it.
What replaces it is assembled rather than discovered — and most of the components sit outside the organisation.
THE MODEL THAT'S THINNING
Value concentrated in the molecule
Defended by exclusivity
Differentiated on efficacy data
Sold through wholesale and hospital channels
Services funded from brand budgets
Revenue as volume × price
WHAT'S BEING ASSEMBLED INSTEAD
Value distributed across the care pathway
Defended by integration and switching cost
Differentiated on outcomes delivered
Direct channels alongside traditional ones
Services with their own economics and P&L
Revenue tied to adherence, persistence, outcome
H. Collective’s Insight
Almost none of these components get built internally from scratch. Which is why a business model question arrives at an innovation team looking like a partnership question…
And gets answered as one, before anybody has settled what model is being built toward.
How we work together
Four steps from model
question to venturing.
Each format answers one part of the model question. Most engagements begin with the first. Several move through more than one.
01
OPPORTUNITY ANALYSIS
What do we build around the franchise?
Mapping the commercial ground around the asset — patient services, diagnostics, adherence infrastructure, direct channels — and sizing what actually fits your capabilities.
Adjacency landscape for your franchise and capabilities
Sizing and competitive dynamics per opportunity
Prioritised shortlist with the reasoning behind it
A paper you can circulate without rewriting
Shows where the commercial ground actually is — before budget is committed to the wrong adjacency.
02
ROUTE DEFINITION
Do we build it, license it, or partner?
A structured framework applied to the shortlist, producing a recommendation that holds up in an IC paper and under questioning from people who weren't in the room.
Decision framework applied per opportunity
Route recommendation with cost, timeline, risk
Capability gap analysis for the build option
IC narrative ready for governance
Turns a contested internal debate into a decision that survives its first review.
03
PARTNER STRATEGY
Who do we partner with, and how?
Formal procurement selects for companies good at responding to procurement. We design and run the search where the interesting partners actually are, then design the steps so both sides can say yes.
Partnership framework: criteria, process, governance
Sourcing and qualification against your criteria
Pilot and stage-gate design for the shortlist
Internal playbook so your team can run it again
Cuts the search from a year of conferences to a qualified shortlist in eight weeks.
04
CORPORATE VENTURING
How do we turn the idea into a business?
Innovation stalls most often between an approved direction and a functioning business. We take a decision through to the point where it can be funded, staffed, and launched.
Validated business case with demand evidence
Commercial model and P&L logic
Launch and channel plan
IC paper and internal pitch narrative
De-risks the build before you staff it, and before the budget is formally committed.
Our recent cases
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![A logo with a stylized reindeer or animal figure with a circle on its head and the words 'novo nordisk' beneath it, on a light blue background.]()
Novo Nordisk
Innovation Management
Novo Nordisk wanted a systematic way to identify, test, and scale external “beyond the pill” solutions in obesity and diabetes, rather than relying on ad-hoc pilots and slow partnership cycles. -
![Graph with the text 'UCB' in the center, divided into four quadrants with dark and light blue sections.]()
UCB Pharma
Innovation Management
UCB wanted to support patients with inflammatory conditions through services and digital tools, and needed a clear view of the patient journey, unmet needs, & partner landscape. -
![Minimalist abstract design with two semi-circles, one light green and one dark green, on a light green background.]()
Uriach Group
Portfolio Innovation & GTM Strategy
Uriach needed grounded clinical and commercial insight to shape their next wave of nutraceutical and health products across several European markets, but lacked a unified prescribing view. -
![Abstract black and white graphic design featuring a central white circle with surrounding white wedge shapes against a black background.]()
Dr. Reddy's Laboratories
Commercial GenAI Strategy
Brought in on a GenAI content platform for a multinational pharma. Patform architecture, evaluation framework design, content business object logic, and HCP journey structure.
Clear scope.
Defined outcomes.
01
Diagnosis before prescription
Every engagement opens with understanding the real question, which is often different from the one in the brief.
02
In the room for the difficult parts
Not just the paper. We show up for stakeholder sessions and the conversations where direction actually gets decided.
03
Your team, more capable
Every engagement includes documentation and handover. The goal is that you don't need us for the same question twice.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Most often external innovation or digital health leads. Sometimes BD or TA strategy. We're happy to help you work out who else needs to be in the room early, since where-to-play questions often touch corporate strategy's mandate.
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Scans and briefings usually within two to three weeks. Programmes depend on capacity — worth asking early if it needs to land inside a planning cycle.
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Frequently. Large strategy firms and H. Collective tend to be useful for different things, and the combination works well when the scopes are clean.
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Our network is strongest across Europe, which matters most for partner sourcing. Strategy work travels more easily. Worth a conversation either way.
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Email us and you'll be on the priority list for the next edition. The Health Innovation Table runs quarterly — next session is planned for Q3 2026.
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That's usually fine. The formats describe typical shape rather than fixed packages, and scope gets agreed to your situation before anything is signed.