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It often starts the same way.
An evening call or text from a client -- usually a familiar voice, sometimes a new one -- who says, “We’re looking at something, and we need a fast, honest, high-level read.” No long preamble. No over-engineering. Just urgency and curiosity.
Two days later, we’re sitting down for lunch on Witherspoon Street in Princeton, one of my favorite pharma haunts. If you’ve spent time in this industry, you know how these conversations unfold. We move carefully through the science, test assumptions about timing and feasibility, and focus on what is knowable in the moment. By the time we leave the table, there is a shared understanding of the questions that matter-- and how quickly they need to be answered.
After more than 30 years in healthcare marketing research, these are still the marketing research consulting engagements that get me personally fired up.
Business development (BD) research is not slow, methodical, or academic -- and that’s exactly the point. These projects live in the fast-moving, real world current of deal windows, investment committees, and competitive pressure. They are about helping teams decide, quickly and confidently, whether an asset deserves more attention; or whether it’s time to walk away.
Many of the marketing research studies we do at ThinkGen unfold over weeks or months. BD work doesn’t have that luxury. What makes it exciting for me personally and my team in general is the combination of high rigor, top-tier respondents, and compressed timelines. You have to know what matters, ask the right questions the first time, and synthesize fast without cutting corners.
That mix -- speed with substance -- is what keeps this work interesting.
Fast BD research only works when you are speaking with the right stakeholders. Under the leadership of Amanda Cirillo, our field team has become one of ThinkGen’s real differentiators. We are highly deliberate -- sometimes unapologetically so -- about respondent selection. That discipline reflects a balance between being choiceful and being practical: rigorous enough to protect the integrity of the insights, and realistic enough to move at the pace BD decisions demand.
If a client is evaluating an in-market asset to put some cash on the books, we often want to speak with high users of that product. These are the HCPs who really know it. They can tell you what it does well, where it shines clinically, which patients they reach for it in, and where they still hesitate. They are also the best source for understanding whether a product has further potential; or whether its ceiling is already visible.
At the same time, we often interview high prescribers in the therapeutic category who haven’t embraced the product. Those conversations are just as revealing. Is there a real flaw? Or is the issue one of awareness, positioning, unanswered clinical questions, or missing real-world evidence?
Very often, barriers turn out to be addressable.
One theme that surfaces repeatedly in our recent work is the legacy of pandemic-era product launches. Many brands introduced during that time never had the opportunity to compete on their merits. Physicians and other HCPs were under extraordinary strain, access was constrained, and the normal rhythms of scientific exchange and promotion were disrupted.
As a result, some products that would likely have gained traction under ordinary conditions stalled -- not because they lacked value, but because the market was not in a position to absorb them.
As a consequence, there are assets on the market today whose full profiles were never fully realized. BD research allows companies to re-examine these products with fresh discipline and distance, asking whether current performance truly reflects intrinsic value. In some cases, targeted education, clearer positioning, or a well-designed clinical study may be enough to surface value that was obscured the first time around.
In an environment where companies are actively reassessing portfolios after JPM, these questions matter.
Exploratory qualitative interviews remain the foundation of good BD work. The quality of insight depends heavily on the moderator: on their understanding of the disease area, the treatment landscape, and the commercial realities that shape behavior.
What’s new at ThinkGen is that we can now pair that qualitative depth with fully integrated quantitative support. That means we’re not just exploring ideas; we’re pressure-testing them. We can size opportunity, compare TPPs, and quantify likelihood of adoption, all within the same fast-turn timeline. We've completed full qual/quant BD studies, start to finish, in less than 10 business days.
Clients don’t just hear what might be true -- they see how often it’s true and for whom.
A major accelerator for us has been the full integration of our ThinkAEI genAI platform across the research lifecycle. This isn’t AI bolted on at the end; it’s embedded from the start.
We use ThinkAEI to sharpen screeners, ensuring we’re efficiently finding exactly the right respondents. It helps us pressure-test topical guides before we ever enter the field, tightening language and identifying gaps. During analysis, it supports rapid synthesis across interviews, helping us spot patterns early and stress-test interpretations.
The result is not just speed -- it’s clarity. AI has become the variable that gives us additional thrust, helping us deliver management-ready answers “just in time,” without sacrificing thoughtfulness or judgment.
BD research sits at the intersection of urgency and consequence. The decisions informed by these studies shape pipelines, portfolios, and long-term strategy.
ThinkGen's goal is simple: to be the team clients call when timing matters and the stakes are high. We bring experience, commercial instincts and perspective, and genuine enthusiasm for the work.
And yes -- after all these years -- I still get a rush when that evening call comes in.
