Building the Road to Revenue

A first commercial launch with nothing to inherit, and the governance decision that mattered more than any design choice.

Directing commercialization infrastructure for an emerging biotech, I built the roadmap to revenue, paired third-party logistics with specialty distribution, kept patient services in-house, and stood up an executive pricing committee so access decisions had a standing forum rather than an escalation path. The thing I would do differently is build patient identification into the infrastructure rather than alongside it.

Decision context

An emerging company launching its first product does not adapt an existing commercial infrastructure. It builds one, at speed, while the clinical organization is still the center of gravity and while the systems in place were designed to track R&D spend and nothing else.

My authority

This one was mine. My scope covered the commercialization infrastructure: the roadmap to revenue, the third-party logistics build, the specialty distribution network, Gross-to-Net, and in-house patient services inside a limited distribution model.

What I helped design

• The roadmap to revenue, as an actual sequenced plan rather than a launch calendar.
• The third-party logistics build and the specialty distribution network, designed together rather than contracted separately.
• In-house patient services, kept inside rather than outsourced, on the argument that in a narrow indication the patient-level knowledge is the asset.
• The specialty pharmacy selection process, which I supported rather than ran, and the operations that had to stand up behind it.
• An executive pricing committee, so that access decisions had a standing forum rather than an escalation path. This is the piece I would defend hardest. A recurring decision that only exists as an escalation gets made late, by whoever is available, under pressure.
• The first long-range scenario plan for an evolving pipeline, and portfolio governance that tied program decisions to financial sustainability rather than to advocacy.

The trade-off

What I would do differently

I would have built the identification capability into the infrastructure rather than alongside it. Everything above serves a patient who has already arrived.

A finance function earns its seat by arriving with an architecture, not with a variance report.

Former employers and products referenced are matters of professional history. The views expressed are my own and are not made on behalf of any current or former employer, and no commercial outcome for any named product is attributed to me personally. All trademarks belong to their respective owners.