Biotech

Biotechnology funding, deals, and IPOs reached the highest levels worldwide in 2020, with venture-capitalist (VC) funding for biotech companies up more than 80 percent year-over-year, and IPO values increasing by more than 180 percent. The next waves of science and innovation are on the horizon, and the bio-revolution is well underway.

However, value creation is not guaranteed. Increasing complexity—scientific, supply chain, access, etc.—raises the bar for high-quality talent and successful execution. For example, less than 50 percent of biotech launches meet expected forecasts, and independent biotech companies launching by themselves the first time are typically less successful than experienced launchers.

McKinsey helps biotech companies across the entire value chain, from early-stage companies getting initial funding to established companies launching into international markets. We also drive transformations by bringing together the capabilities needed to help organizations grow and thrive in the digital age.

Developing equity stories and helping prepare financing rounds and IPOs
Help biotech companies present equity stories—such as business models, competitive advantages, strategy, and market dynamics—in a compelling way that maximizes valuation in financing rounds and at IPO

Investing our people to build the next generation of innovators
Align with clients to ensure there are shared objectives and key performance indicators. We invest our human capital—our capabilities, databases, people, and tools—in promising biotech companies to help them scale and achieve high ambitions, using our proven Leap by McKinsey methodology. We invest in and innovate new delivery models that allow us to share risks and upsides, which is different from our more traditional project-based work

Corporate strategy and capital market
Develop holistic corporate strategy to steer mid- to long-term direction, understand key value drivers from the investor’s view, and articulate compelling stories

Portfolio and platform strategy and asset optimization
Maximize R&D platforms and portfolio value with unrivaled expertise in portfolio strategy, clinical development strategy, study design optimization, and clinical-operations acceleration

Launch and go-to-market
Assess launch readiness and design differentiated go-to-market models, such as access, commercial, and medical while developing commercial organizations and building roadmaps with clear value propositions in market and competition

Operations
Build the manufacturing plant of the future, integrate digital and analytics to achieve world-class productivity and quality

Strategic partnerships
Support strategic partnerships by evaluating portfolio, value-chain strength, geographic trends, and strategic fit that inform partnering options and craft value-proposition stories

Future-proof organization
Develop the organization of the future by considering rapidly evolving and growing organizational changes in external competition and commercial environments

International expansion
Define the launch model for international markets based on an evaluation of the addressable patient population by market, and by assessing commercial and organization requirements

Eureka
A groundbreaking initiative to advance and deploy state-of-the-art, AI-constructed drug discovery and development as part of outcome-based partnerships with our biopharmaceutical clients. Eureka brings the best of tools and talent from QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey, with the distinctive data from our center of excellence in life-sciences data, where we have a number of strategic partnerships across geographies and therapeutic areas.