Product Strategy for a Pharma Consumer Digital Front Door
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Overview
What we built
A specialty pharma had never given patients anywhere of their own to go: they only met the company through prescribers and a scatter of unconnected savings-card microsites. We ran a product strategy engagement that turned that gap into a ratified roadmap for a real front door, with a funded programme leadership had been unable to agree on for over a year.
In plain terms: this mid-size specialty pharma had products in 20 markets but no consumer-facing digital experience of its own. Patients only ever met the company through their prescriber, or by stumbling onto one of a scatter of brand savings-card microsites, each built and owned by a different team. Leadership agreed a patient front door was needed, but could not agree what it should do, who owned it, or where regulatory review would sit, and the debate had run for 14 months without a resolution.
We ran a 10-week product strategy engagement: patient journey research across three therapy areas, jobs-to-be-done interviews, and opportunity sizing for appointment support, savings programmes and diagnostics partnerships. Concept workshops brought medical, legal and regulatory teams into the same room, compliance guardrails were defined up front rather than left for later, and the engagement closed with a ratified three-phase roadmap. The candidate feature list narrowed from 31 concepts to a 7-feature phase-one scope backed by all five business units, and a funded go decision followed in 10 weeks.
The Problem
No patient-facing digital channel
For a specialty pharma with products in 20 markets, having no consumer-facing digital experience was not a gap so much as a pattern. Patients met the company only through prescribers, or through whichever brand savings-card microsite they happened to land on, each one owned by a different team with its own look, its own login and no connection to the others. There was no single place a patient could go to understand their options.
Everyone agreed a patient front door was needed. Almost nobody agreed on anything past that. What should it actually do: appointment support, savings programmes, diagnostics partnerships, all three? Who would own it once it existed, a brand team, a new function, someone else entirely? And where would regulatory review sit in a process nobody had designed? The debate ran for 14 months without those questions ever being resolved.
No shared front door
Patients only reached the company through prescribers or scattered brand savings-card microsites, each owned separately with no consistent experience between them.
Unclear scope
Leadership could not agree what a patient front door should actually do among appointment support, savings programmes and diagnostics partnerships.
No named owner
Nobody held clear ownership of a future patient front door, so every proposal stalled on the question of whose responsibility it would be.
Regulatory review undefined
There was no agreed point in the process where regulatory review would sit, leaving compliance as an afterthought rather than a starting point.
What it was costing them
The 14 months of inconclusive internal debate meant patients across 20 markets kept meeting the company only through prescribers and a scatter of disconnected savings-card microsites, each owned by a different team pulling in its own direction. Every month without a decision was a month those separate brand efforts kept duplicating spend instead of building toward one front door, and leadership still had no shared answer on scope, ownership or where regulatory review belonged.
The Solution
Ratified front-door product roadmap
We opened the 10-week engagement with patient journey research across three therapy areas, using jobs-to-be-done interviews to understand what patients were actually trying to accomplish rather than what the brand microsites assumed they wanted. Alongside that research we sized the opportunity for appointment support, savings programmes and diagnostics partnerships, so the roadmap that followed was grounded in patient need rather than internal preference.
The scope question could not be settled by research alone, so we facilitated concept workshops that put medical, legal and regulatory teams in the same room for the first time. Compliance guardrails were defined up front, before concepts were prioritised, so nothing in the eventual roadmap would need to be unwound later for a regulatory reason nobody had raised early enough to matter.
We delivered a ratified three-phase roadmap with explicit build-versus-partner calls for each capability, appointment support, savings programmes and diagnostics partnerships among them, and an operating model for a new consumer product group to own it going forward. The candidate feature list was narrowed from 31 concepts to a 7-feature phase-one scope, and every one of the five business units signed off before the roadmap was called ratified.
Key decisions
Compliance guardrails before prioritisation
We defined compliance guardrails up front, ahead of any feature prioritisation, so regulatory review had a defined place in the process from the start.
Patient research over brand assumptions
Jobs-to-be-done interviews and patient journey research across three therapy areas grounded the roadmap in what patients needed rather than what brand teams assumed.
Medical, legal and regulatory in one room
Concept workshops brought medical, legal and regulatory teams together directly, so scope decisions were made with every relevant voice present, not negotiated afterward.
Build versus partner, capability by capability
Each roadmap capability got an explicit build-versus-partner call rather than a blanket approach, so the new consumer product group could resource appropriately from day one.
Narrow to a scope every unit backs
The feature list was narrowed from 31 concepts to a 7-feature phase-one scope specifically because it was the set all five business units would support.
Measurable Impact
What changed after launch
The 14 months of inconclusive debate ended with a funded go decision reached in 10 weeks, once the roadmap gave leadership a scope and an owner to agree on. The candidate feature list narrowed from 31 concepts to a ratified 7-feature phase-one scope, and all five business units backed it, which is what let the go decision move as quickly as it did.
Consolidating nine brand microsite briefs into one front-door programme cut the projected year-one build budget by 28%, turning duplicated spend into a single funded effort. Momentum carried past the roadmap readout: 3 of 4 phase-one roadmap initiatives moved into active build within the following quarter, giving the new consumer product group an operating model with real work already underway.
Patient channel
Prescribers and scattered savings-card microsites only
Ratified three-phase front-door product roadmap
Decision speed
14 months of inconclusive internal debate
Funded go decision reached in 10 weeks
Feature scope
31 competing concepts with no agreed shortlist
7-feature phase-one scope backed by all business units
Build budget
Nine separate brand microsite briefs
One programme, year-one budget cut by 28%
Headline results
Candidate feature list narrowed from 31 concepts to a ratified 7-feature phase-one scope backed by all five business units
Funded go decision reached in 10 weeks after 14 months of inconclusive internal debate
Projected year-one build budget cut by 28% by consolidating nine brand microsite briefs into one front-door programme
3 of 4 phase-one roadmap initiatives moved into active build within the following quarter
Tech & Tools Used
What powered the build
Every tool below earned its place in this engagement. Here is the part each one played.
Miro
Hosted the concept workshops that brought medical, legal and regulatory teams together to prioritise appointment support, savings programmes and diagnostics partnerships.
Figma
Used to sketch the patient front door experience emerging from the roadmap, giving business units something concrete to react to beyond a feature list.
Dovetail
Organised the jobs-to-be-done interview findings from the patient journey research, so themes across three therapy areas stayed traceable back to source.
UserTesting
Ran moderated sessions with patients to pressure-test appointment support and savings programme concepts before they reached the roadmap.
Airtable
Tracked the candidate feature list as it narrowed from 31 concepts to the ratified 7-feature phase-one scope, with sign-off status per business unit.
Productboard
Held the build-versus-partner scoring for each roadmap capability, keeping the three-phase sequencing visible to the new consumer product group.
Notion
The home for the compliance guardrails, workshop outputs and the ratified roadmap that medical, legal and regulatory teams referred back to.
Google BigQuery
Brought patient journey and market data across the 20 markets together to size the opportunity for each candidate capability.
Looker Studio
Presented the opportunity sizing and go-decision case to leadership, the view that helped move the funded go decision along after 14 months of debate.
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