ASAP Blog

Looking to engage with our member community by contributing to ASAP’s content? Send your blog post, article draft, or idea to Michael Burke at mburke@strategic-alliances.org. 

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In Partners We Trust: ASAP Webinar Breaks Down the Importance of Having Faith in Your Collaborators
In Partners We Trust: ASAP Webinar Breaks Down the Importance of Having Faith in Your Collaborators

Trust is the foundation of any alliance. You need to build it between and within partner organizations early, and work hard to maintain it over time. Because once it's gone, so goes your alliance, in all likelihood, as was explained in ASAP's latest webinar. Continue Reading

Postedby Jon Lavietes
Date posted12/1/2022
Amazing Discoveries: Takeda Showcases Tips for Partnerships at the Earliest Clinical Stages
Amazing Discoveries: Takeda Showcases Tips for Partnerships at the Earliest Clinical Stages

In discovery-phase alliances, alliance managers need to have their eyes on the big picture and broader company strategy when working with scientists who are often too narrowly focused on short-term objectives. Three Takeda executives explained in an 2022 ASAP BioPharma Conference presentation. Continue Reading

Postedby Jon Lavietes
Date posted11/29/2022
Big Companies, Big Stakes: How to Make Big Pharma “Mega Collaborations” Work
Big Companies, Big Stakes: How to Make Big Pharma “Mega Collaborations” Work

Caroline Rader, Chris Black, Ken Marran, and Ryan Lenox brought ASAP BioPharma Conference took attendees behind the curtain of Merck's Big-Pharma-to-Big-Pharma alliances, which are responsible for major multibillion-dollar, market-moving drug candidates. Continue Reading

Postedby Jon Lavietes
Date posted11/22/2022
Communications: “Job Number One” for Alliance Managers
Communications: “Job Number One” for Alliance Managers

Communication is "job number one." Alliance manager are “communications cops” who function as “communications central,” making sure internal and partner stakeholders receive and deliver critical information pertaining to the partnership in a timely manner. Continue Reading

Postedby Jon Lavietes
Date posted11/16/2022
Beyond the Bermuda Triangle: Concrete Measures to Handle the Intangibles That Can Sink an Alliance
Beyond the Bermuda Triangle: Concrete Measures to Handle the Intangibles That Can Sink an Alliance

Jim Mullen of Editas Medicine delivered tips on dealing with “the Bermuda Triangle of contract issues”—decision rights, dispute resolution, and termination—in his ASAP BioPharma Conference keynote. When conflict arises, get agreement on the facts, but don't require a consensus decision. Continue Reading

Postedby Jon Lavietes
Date posted11/10/2022
What Biopharma Needs to Know About Digital Transformation: Culture, Competencies, and Trust
What Biopharma Needs to Know About Digital Transformation: Culture, Competencies, and Trust

What do biopharma alliance managers need to know about digital transformation? Microsoft's Elena Bonfiglioli outlined three things in her ASAP BioPharma Conference keynote: 1) culture that promotes privacy, 2) competencies, and 3) trust. Continue Reading

Postedby Jon Lavietes
Date posted11/3/2022
Getting Better All the Time: Continuous Improvement in Partnering
Getting Better All the Time: Continuous Improvement in Partnering

How do you continually improve your partnerships? Don't wait until something is broken to make adjustments, reward the people making improvements, discuss potential changes frequently, and use the ISO 44001 and 56002 standards in combination. The latest Collaborative Connection Monthly explains. Continue Reading

Postedby Jon Lavietes
Date posted10/20/2022
It Takes a Village—and an Ecosystem—to Tackle Rare Diseases
It Takes a Village—and an Ecosystem—to Tackle Rare Diseases

How do you develop therapies that will help capture part of the rare/orphan disease market that is expected to exceed $300 billion in 2030? It takes an ecosystem of seven players, explained Jeff Livingstone in his ASAP BioPharma Conference presentation last last month. Continue Reading

Postedby Jon Lavietes
Date posted10/18/2022
A Master Class in Building Bridges
A Master Class in Building Bridges

Influence is what helps build bridges when partners are at odds. “It is perhaps the hardest part of the job, but it is the part of the job that delivers the greatest value." The Rhythm of Business delivered a master class on the subject at the 2022 ASAP BioPharma Conference. Continue Reading

Postedby Jon Lavietes
Date posted10/12/2022
The Devil Inside: ASAP Roundtable Explores Internal Stakeholder Alignment Challenges
The Devil Inside: ASAP Roundtable Explores Internal Stakeholder Alignment Challenges

What's causing alliance managers to spend 70% of their time aligning stakeholders? competition for resources, organizational silos, lack of clarity on the partnership’s North Star, and changes in executive leadership, to name a few, according to participants in a recent ASAP roundtable. Continue Reading

Postedby Jon Lavietes
Date posted10/11/2022
Speaking C-Suite, the Language of Career Advancement
Speaking C-Suite, the Language of Career Advancement

What do your C-level execs want to know? What's the best way to deliver that information? And how do you do it quickly, so as not to waste your senior executive's precious time? Sally Wang, Katherine Kendrick and Drew Quinlan broke it down in ASAP's latest webinar. Continue Reading

Postedby Jon Lavietes
Date posted10/5/2022
We Can Be Heroes: Alliance Managers and the C-Suite
We Can Be Heroes: Alliance Managers and the C-Suite

According to our ASAP BioPharma Conference keynote speaker, the future for alliance managers is bright. In fact, their particular blend of skills and capabilities could just light their way up to the corner offices where the C-level executives live. Continue Reading

Postedby Michael Burke
Date posted09/30/2022