Is Traditional Strategic Planning Giving Pharmaceutical Leaders a False Sense of Security?

The problem with most strategic plans isn’t the quality of the analysis. It’s that nobody has seriously tried to defeat them.

Pharmaceutical companies are exceptionally good at planning. Few industries devote comparable resources to understanding markets, analysing competitors, forecasting demand and developing commercial strategies.

Global and regional teams invest months preparing brand plans, launch strategies, lifecycle management programmes and long-range forecasts. These are supported by market research, competitive intelligence, financial modelling and increasingly sophisticated analytical tools.

The resulting strategies are typically comprehensive, carefully documented and extensively reviewed. Yet one important question is often left insufficiently explored: What happens if our competitors don’t behave as we expect?

Not simply what happens if market conditions change, but what happens when an intelligent, well-resourced competitor deliberately takes actions designed to undermine our strategy? Competitors aren’t passive variables in a forecasting model. They are organisations making their own decisions, pursuing their own objectives and responding to many of the same market signals.

The uncomfortable reality is that a strategy can be analytically rigorous, internally consistent and widely supported — yet remain vulnerable to competitive actions that were never seriously considered.

When the market challenges expectations

Recent pharmaceutical launches provide a timely illustration of how difficult it can be to anticipate commercial outcomes. In October 2026, BioSpace published an analysis of five pharmaceutical launches that had challenged industry expectations.

One particularly interesting example was Novo Nordisk’s oral Wegovy. Despite concerns about Novo Nordisk’s competitive position against Eli Lilly, oral Wegovy reportedly generated approximately $355 million in its first commercial quarter, exceeding many initial market expectations. Its early commercial performance reflected more than clinical differentiation: pricing, pharmacy distribution and access through telehealth providers all contributed to the launch strategy.

The interesting question is not simply why analysts underestimated initial demand. It is whether conventional competitive assessments sufficiently considered how Novo Nordisk might compete through a different combination of pricing, distribution and accessibility. What if the critical competitive advantage comes not from a superior clinical profile, but from changing how patients access treatment?

A competitive wargame could have explored this possibility. Teams representing competing manufacturers might have considered alternative pricing models, distribution strategies, patient access programmes and potential competitive responses. Rather than relying on a single expected market trajectory, leadership teams could have explored several plausible scenarios.

Strong initial launch performance does not guarantee sustained competitive advantage. Competitors can respond, market conditions can change, and early adoption patterns may not persist. The objective would not have been to predict oral Wegovy’s precise launch revenues, but to identify which assumptions mattered most and prepare alternative responses.

Another example highlighted by BioSpace involved Icotyde, where approximately 60% of early patients reportedly had not previously received systemic therapy. This raises a different strategic question: What happens when a new competitor doesn’t simply take market share, but changes the size of the market itself?

Traditional competitive forecasts frequently focus on switching between established therapies. But a new treatment may attract previously untreated patients, alter prescribing behaviour or change the treatment pathway. The resulting market may look very different from the one originally forecast.

These examples do not demonstrate that the companies involved used competitive wargaming, nor that wargaming would necessarily have predicted their success. They illustrate something more fundamental: the greatest strategic risks may arise not from the assumptions we know are uncertain, but from the assumptions we have stopped questioning.

When planning becomes an exercise in confirming assumptions

Traditional strategic planning serves an essential purpose. It creates direction, allocates resources, establishes priorities and aligns organisations around common objectives. The problem isn’t that these processes are ineffective. It’s that they can create a level of confidence that exceeds how thoroughly the strategy has actually been tested.

1. Confirmation bias: When assumptions become accepted truths

Every strategy begins with assumptions about market growth, competitor behaviour, clinical differentiation, customer preferences, pricing and access. These assumptions are necessary. However, as strategies develop, they can gradually become embedded in an organisation’s thinking. Over successive planning cycles, they may receive less scrutiny, particularly when supported by detailed analysis and accepted across the organisation.

The risk is that planning increasingly focuses on refining the chosen strategy rather than questioning whether the underlying strategic choices remain valid.

2. The illusion of precision

Pharmaceutical forecasting has become increasingly sophisticated. Detailed epidemiological models, patient-flow analyses, market research and competitor assessments can produce forecasts extending many years into the future. These tools are essential for investment decisions and resource allocation.

However, numerical precision should not be confused with strategic certainty. A forecast may estimate competitor launch timing, market share, pricing and treatment adoption, but competitors can change their strategies. They may accelerate development, pursue different indications, adopt unexpected pricing models or invest disproportionately in particular customer segments.

A detailed forecast is not the same as a strategy that has been tested against intelligent competitive opposition.

3. Competitors are treated as predictable

Competitive intelligence provides valuable information about competitor pipelines, clinical programmes, commercial capabilities and likely strategic intentions. However, understanding a competitor’s current position is not the same as anticipating how that competitor might act.

Consider an originator pharmaceutical company approaching loss of exclusivity. Its forecasts may incorporate assumptions about biosimilar entry, price erosion and market-share losses. But what if a biosimilar competitor adopts a much more aggressive commercial strategy, targets a particular customer segment or introduces a pricing model that changes purchasing behaviour?

The critical issue is not simply whether these possibilities were identified. It is whether the organisation explored their implications and developed credible responses before they occurred.

4. Internal alignment can discourage constructive challenge

Strategic planning also achieves organisational alignment. Commercial, medical, market access, finance and senior leadership teams must agree on priorities and resources. Yet once a preferred strategy emerges, alternative perspectives may receive less attention. Teams can become reluctant to challenge assumptions that have already secured management support.

Constructive disagreement is not a failure of alignment. It is often a prerequisite for better strategic decisions.

What happens when we think like the competitor?

This is where competitive wargaming can provide a valuable additional perspective. Rather than simply analysing competitors from the outside, wargaming asks participants to step into their competitors’ shoes. Teams examine competitor objectives, capabilities, constraints and strategic options, then explore plausible actions and countermoves.

A pharmaceutical company preparing for a major launch might ask: How could the market leader defend its position? Which competitive actions would most threaten our assumptions? Could competitors change the basis of competition through pricing, access or distribution? How might payers, healthcare professionals and patients respond? Which alternative responses should we prepare? What early-warning indicators would suggest a change in strategy?

These questions move the discussion beyond identifying threats. They require participants to consider how competitors might act, why they might make particular choices and what those decisions would mean for the organisation’s own strategy.

A well-designed wargame also introduces a psychological shift: participants are encouraged to advocate for the competitor rather than defend their organisation’s existing strategy. This can expose vulnerabilities that might otherwise remain unchallenged.

The objective is not to predict the future with certainty. It is to broaden the possibilities considered, identify strategic vulnerabilities and prepare the organisation to respond more effectively. Competitive intelligence helps us understand the landscape. Wargaming helps us explore what competitors might do next — and what we should do about it.

A more demanding standard for strategic planning

Traditionally, a successful planning process may be measured by a comprehensive plan, cross-functional alignment, clear objectives, agreed budgets and leadership approval. These are necessary, but not sufficient evidence that the strategy is robust.

A more demanding standard asks: Has the strategy survived a serious attempt to defeat it? Have we explored the most damaging competitor actions? Have we tested the assumptions that matter most? Have we considered how competitors might respond to our decisions? Have we identified credible alternatives? And do we know what would cause us to change course?

These questions shift planning from an exercise in agreement towards a more rigorous process of competitive challenge. Competitive wargaming should not replace strategic planning, market research or competitive intelligence. It should strengthen them.

The real test of a strategy

Pharmaceutical companies will continue to invest heavily in strategic planning, forecasting and competitive intelligence — and rightly so. But sophisticated analysis cannot eliminate uncertainty. Competitors will make unexpected decisions, clinical evidence will change, new treatments may expand markets and stakeholders will respond in difficult-to-predict ways.

Strategic planning should do more than explain why a chosen strategy will succeed. It should establish how the organisation might respond when its assumptions are challenged. A strategy that has never been challenged by an intelligent opponent may be considerably less robust than its authors believe.

Perhaps the most valuable question a pharmaceutical leadership team can ask is not “Why are we confident in our strategy?” but “What would our competitors have to do to make our current strategy wrong?”

Because strategic planning should not simply produce a plan that everyone supports. It should produce a strategy that has survived serious competitive challenge.

Outthink Your Competitors

This is the first article in a three-part series exploring how pharmaceutical companies can strengthen strategic decision-making by challenging assumptions, simulating competitive behaviour and preparing for uncertainty.

Next article: Your Competitors Don’t Follow Your Forecasts: Why Pharmaceutical Strategy Needs Competitive Simulation.

About Cx Pharma Consulting

Cx Pharma Consulting helps pharmaceutical and biotechnology organisations test their competitive strategies through facilitated competitive wargaming and focused strategic challenge sessions. Drawing on more than 25 years of pharmaceutical marketing, commercial leadership and consulting experience, Cx works with leadership teams to explore threats, challenge assumptions and prepare practical responses.

Outthink your competitors — before you make your next move.

Explore our approach: https://cxpharmaconsulting.com

Reference

Manalac, T. (2026). “5 New Drug Launches That Defied Industry Expectations.” BioSpace, 28 October 2026. https://www.biospace.com/business/5-new-drug-launches-that-defied-industry-expectations

Wargaming doesn’t replace strategic planning. It stress-tests the assumptions on which strategic plans depend.