Challenging times can put a strain on any relationship, making it harder to keep everything working in harmony. The pharmaceutical sector is certainly facing new challenges, as well as opportunities, both of which have the potential to disrupt the harmony within its working relationships.

When it comes to commercialising assets, relationships between business partners and agencies are key to ensuring we make the most of the products (innovations and discoveries) and provide greatest benefit to humanity. But the business partner and agency are not alone in these relationships; in our view, it’s more of a Partnership Triangle. Procurement has an important role to play as the third stakeholder in our Business Partnership Triangle, and we need to recognise that working together, and not in isolation or conspiratorially, is key to long-term success for all.

Unfortunately, if we are honest, the track record of the Business Partnership Triangle has not always been to solve problems collaboratively. Instead, each stakeholder has focused on its own issues and expected the others to respond accordingly, often not taking into account the impact on those other stakeholders. This risks inciting bad feelings and can ultimately lead to the partnership breaking down. Of course, there have been initiatives that have attempted to improve this dynamic, where all parties commit to working together more harmoniously going forward. But often these occur without really getting to the crux of why the differences exist in the first place. We have all seen pledges to do better and best practice guides published over the years. It’s not to say they don’t help – they do. But the question is, are they more a sticking-plaster fix, rather than a long-term solution?

In 2024, the Healthcare Communications Association (HCA) – recognising that these business partnerships and their related processes were suboptimal, and hearing this message repeatedly from all stakeholder groups – decided that to help make a meaningful difference, it needed to deliver a more innovative and courageous approach. Feeling the clue to the solution was in the word ‘partnership’, the HCA set out to catalyse changes in the Partnership Triangle’s dynamics, by working in partnership.

You don’t solve this type of ingrained dysfunction overnight, so this article aims to share the impact this work has had, and will continue to have, with the hope it will encourage others to build on the insights, so collectively we can move forward in a much more positive way.

It is important to add a disclaimer here. We are not suggesting that every partnership is suboptimal. Clearly, some are better than others and there are obviously excellent examples where the Partnership Triangle is in total harmony. And that’s great, as it provides best practice examples that we can all learn from. But there is always scope for improvement and the general challenges identified here have come from all the stakeholders in the Partnership Triangle, so they are not only reflective of a single perspective.

The work has consisted of two distinct phases. The first was the ratification of the challenges that exist within the Partnership Triangle. This was achieved through qualitative discussion of the challenges faced, which was conducted with representatives of all the stakeholder groups.

The objective of stage two was to start to move from challenge identification, to initial strategies for change. The important nuance of this stage was that each stakeholder group was asked to put themselves in the shoes of, and address the challenges of, their partner stakeholders, not their own. This process of building awareness of the perspectives and challenges of their partner stakeholders allowed ideas to be developed that, by definition, were understood and accepted by all. We believe this is such a critical step to catalyse the changes required. Even if some of the proposed solutions could have been identified by the stakeholder group they impact, it is the very fact that all stakeholders have been involved in the thought process that maximises the solutions’ probability of acceptance and ultimate success.

The results of stage two identified the following insights and associated solutions, which we have grouped together by stakeholder group.

The business partner challenges identified revolve around balancing the desire for quality, with cost containment and more generic business priorities:

• Balancing cost containment with quality: current processes often focus on rigid cost controls (eg, fixed pricing for KOL filming) without accounting for qualitative differences, leading to inequitable comparisons
• Streamlining procurement processes for new agencies: the need for due diligence often results in cumbersome procedures that significantly strain team resources and capacity
• Aligning agency selection with business priorities: there is a need for clearer alignment between agency procurement practices and business objectives, particularly in defining and delivering value
• Enhancing transparency for effective benchmarking: limited data-sharing practices from agencies hinder the ability to benchmark effectively against industry standards.

For procurement, it’s more that there is a perception of a lack of understanding of its role and what it is tasked to achieve:

• Lack of alignment on scope of roles: which stakeholder has lead responsibility for managing different relationships in the Partnership Triangle
• Lack of unity and shared commitment from business partners: to the procurement strategy approved by senior leadership
• Poor compliance with procurement processes: driven by a lack of understanding and high turnover within business partner roles
• Securing the best value for the company: while taking aspects such as supplier diversity into consideration.

The agency feels it lacks the openness to be a true partner and feels financially squeezed in every direction:

• Lack of transparency and sharing of information between stakeholders: including the true nature of their business challenges and on the tangible opportunities available to those participating in procurement processes (RFI/RFP and pitches)
• High cost (time and resources): associated with participation in procurement processes
• Perceived lack of importance of value impact vs cost only: in vendor selection
• Lack of understanding: around what success looks like for each stakeholder.

Foundational for all solutions, across all stakeholders, was a need for better understanding of each other’s roles and responsibilities. This, it was felt, would help build greater trust and transparency across the Partnership Triangle. The process of this work had helped achieve that for those participating and therefore highlighted the acute gap in knowledge and understanding that exists. Multi-stakeholder training on relevant topics and opportunities either directly, (through opportunities to ‘experience being in each other’s shoes’) or through promotion/education, could also help to better understand each other’s roles, responsibilities and challenges.

Alongside the development of some of the specific suggestions already outlined, it is clear our vision should be to build trust between all stakeholders to enhance business relationships and improve outcomes. We will only do this by establishing transparency and shared accountability across all stakeholders.

As first strategies, we need to better highlight the roles of procurement and business partners to foster a deeper understanding of their responsibilities, decision-making criteria and interactions with each other and other stakeholders within the Partnership Triangle. We also need to work to establish best practice guidance for optimal partnerships. And finally, we need to engage with the wider stakeholder communities to extend awareness of these strategies to help optimise the Partnership Triangle.

This programme of work by the HCA will continue to build on these robust insights and in this direction, both strategically and tactically. We welcome you to actively engage with us as we continue this journey.

Ultimately, this is a challenge for the entire sector and we encourage everybody within the Partnership Triangle, and those who oversee these functions, to take our work and use the insights and directions it provides, to help optimise your business partnerships, for collective success and sustainability.

Kayhan Binazir, Global Medical Director – Respiratory Pathogens, GSK
Sabrina Gomersall, Founding Director, POP Health
Duncan Lewis, Chief Operating Officer, Arc Bio Communications
Annabelle Sandeman, Chief Growth Officer, Publicis Health, London
Helen Thompson, Director of Procurement Consulting, Helen Thompson Consulting Ltd
Laura Wilson, Head of Commercial Strategy, Bedrock Healthcare Communications