Pharmaceutical Market Europe • October 2025 • 14

HEALTHCARE

SHANNON TE ROLLER

Support your backbone with legacy brands that deliver competitive edge

Legacy assets may no longer be the star of the show, but they remain critical

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In the world of pharma, celebrating the thrill of a new product launch comes naturally. What’s harder, and often overlooked, is managing the portfolio that quietly sustains the business long after the fanfare fades.

Throughout my career, I’ve seen this imbalance play out repeatedly – global strategies prioritise innovation, while local teams are left to maintain the performance of mature brands with limited guidance or investment. These legacy assets may no longer be the star of the show, but they remain critical, driving profitability, supporting infrastructure and continuing to serve patients every day.

When the organisational spotlight tilts too far towards the next big thing, the link between breakthrough growth and legacy value begins to fray. This tension can lead to conflicting priorities, fragmented planning and missed opportunities.

Six practical shifts that make a difference

Too often, the disconnect between global strategy and local execution is acknowledged, but not actively addressed. Good intentions aren’t enough. Bridging this gap means rethinking how we think, plan and operate across the life cycle.

1. Prevent misalignment from taking root
Strategic misalignment rarely arrives with a warning. It emerges quietly: through inconsistent execution, rushed compromises, or slipping targets. In many cases, the root causes are structural and systemic:

  • Strategic priorities between global and local teams are often misaligned due to limited oversight and coordination
  • The long-term value of life cycle management is undervalued, leading to underinvestment in mature brands.
Naming these challenges openly – and treating them as organisational issues – is the first step towards fixing them.

2. Use shared criteria to guide portfolio choices
A transparent, data-driven, decision-making framework helps global and local teams evaluate and quantify trade-offs together. The aim isn’t to add complexity, but to support smarter, faster prioritisation:
  • Local teams need a structured way to frame the case for legacy brand investment
  • Global teams need objective inputs to confidently weigh competing priorities.
A shared framework moves conversations from friction to collaboration, and from politics to performance.

3. Update life cycle management for today’s needs
Mature brands don’t require less attention, just a different kind. When life cycle management is treated as a strategic discipline, it drives sustained value. This means:
  • Scaling investment based on future market opportunity rather than past performance.
This portfolio mindset helps organisations stay agile and focused on what still delivers value, especially when budgets are tight.

4. Involve local insight early in life cycle planning – not as a formality
The most successful strategies embed local voices into global thinking from the outset. This leads to:
  • Target product profiles (TPPs) that reflect real-world needs, aligning global ambition with practical execution
  • Active roles for local leaders in global life cycle teams, building shared ownership and mutual accountability.
These aren’t token gestures. They reduce rework, enable better decisions and support relevance across diverse markets.

5. Empower local teams to lead on resource allocation
Intentionally enable local teams to make trade-offs wisely, while staying aligned to broader goals:
  • P&L-controlled autonomy fosters confidence, accountability and speed of execution.
The closer decision-making is to the customer and the data, the stronger the results.

6. Measure what really matters – across the portfolio
Legacy brands frequently remain underrepresented in KPIs and incentive systems designed to drive strategic outcome:
  • Teams should be encouraged to balance innovation and optimisation, integrating the two as complementary priorities.
When performance measurement reflects the full commercial reality, life cycle management becomes part of the core business.

Building coherence without compromise

There’s no single blueprint for closing the divide between launch-driven strategies and the sustained management of mature brands, but there is a better balance to be struck – a balance that honours innovation while also recognising the enduring contribution of established brands.

In my experience, when we listen across functions, ask better questions and bring more structure to our thinking, alignment gets easier and outcomes improve.

Mature brands don’t need to compete with new launches for attention. But they do deserve thoughtful planning, deliberate support and a seat at the strategic table. When that happens, the full portfolio becomes stronger, more resilient – and more influential.

Shannon te Roller is a Senior Principal at Uptake