Life Sciences Cluster: What are Your International Expansion Challenges?

International Expansion Challenges

The Life Sciences Industry faces some of the same International Expansion Challenges
faced by other industries pursuing global expansion:

  • They must ask themselves which geographical markets they want to expand into.
  • They must find out how they will go about market entry. License the technology to a foreign partner? Find a distributor? Or set up a subsidiary?

Answers to these and other questions lead to a Strategic International Business Development Plan. A plan that subsequently gets implemented, used as a measuring stick, corrected, amended and repeated.

International Expansion Challenges specific to the Life Sciences industry

But there are also issues which are very specific to the Life Sciences Industry:

  • Patent protection. Maybe you want to be a global company. But when you just get started, you do not have the funds to develop a global IP strategy? What do you do?
  • Regulatory approval. Administrative fees for filing regulatory approval are substantial. But they are small as compared to the clinical studies that may be required. The whole process may take more or less time based on the country or region where you pursue regulatory approval. Given limited resources, how do you go about conquering the world? Where do you file first? What do you file for? Will you obtain approval and make money before you run out of funds?
  • Reimbursement approval. In many countries governments have a heavy hand in how, an how much, you will receive for the use of your product. Each country has different rules regarding reimbursement, and its own processes. As you might expect, some countries take longer than others. It is foolish to develop a business plan without thinking about the reimbursement process.

 

Strategic Planning

Some say that most small Life Sciences companies prefer not to commercialize their products. These small companies hope to sell to an acquirer that has the resources to commercialize their products. We suggest that the start-up can build value -$’S added to the startup’s sale price-through Strategic forethought that leads to a coherent market entry, approval and reimbursement plan. The potential acquirer will understand the startup has vetted the path to commercialization and understands what it will take to get there. The start-up sends a strong signal that the start-up has options besides acquisition.

WHAT are your International Expansion Challenges?

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