The Atacana CI Process
The competitive landscape is changing faster than ever before – Why the time to act is now
In today’s biopharmaceutical environment, competitive risk is no longer episodic, it is constant, compounding, and increasingly difficult to detect early. Organizations that fail to systematically address these threats don’t just lose advantage, they lose the ability to compete.
Data Overload
The number of competitors and the amount of available data are increasing exponentially: more clinical trials, increasing pipeline activity, increasing regulations, and increasing scientific breakthroughs with AI.
Teams are exposed to more information than ever before, but it’s fragmented, difficult to monitor and difficult to analyze.
Cost Pressure
Drug development and commercialization are becoming more expensive and time-consuming. Goverments and payers are demanding lower costs. Pharma investments are made without understanding the competitive landscape.
AI Disruption
AI compute has grown 1,000x in a decade and continues to improve exponentially every year. AI processes documents thousands of times faster and generates analysis 600x faster than a human at a fraction of the cost.
Your competitors are already using these capabilities to monitor, analyze, and act faster than ever.
Action Gap
Traditional CI providers deliver static reports and databases. Even the best AI search platforms leave the client to do the "so what" work. Atacana combines AI-powered continuous monitoring, that updates in real time, learns from every engagement, and costs less over time, with an experienced pharma team that translates intelligence into action. Strategic workshops to align your people. Rapid response teams to develop scenarios and plans before things happen in the marketplace.
How We Turn Competitive Threats into a winning strategy
Explosion of Data & Competitive pressures
We work as trusted competitive intelligence partners to simplify complex data into a clear view of what matters most so teams know where to focus.
Faster, more confident decisions with full alignment.
The Insight-to-Action Gap
Our pharma executives translate competitive intelligence into clear strategic choices to ensure insights are understood, aligned on, and acted upon.
Better decisions, stronger positioning, and improved ROI.
The Rate of Change Is Increasing
Most CI providers can generate insights. Atacana's intelligence compounds every insight, every pattern, every decision is encoded into our systems. Our AI gets smarter, faster, and cheaper over time, freeing our experts to analyze and orchestrate.
An exponential advantage your competitors can't replicate because years of accumulated intelligence can't be built overnight.
We Follow Our Proven CI Process
Our approach ensures that pharma competitive intelligence is relevant and actionable to your situation and stakeholders.
Our competitive readiness services
Proven CI Methodology
Our process on how to conduct CI has been published in Nature Biotechnology in 2005 in an article titled: “How to conduct competitive intelligence in your biotech startup”.
Download the Article
Leveraging Proven Results
It has been implemented with the top pharmaceutical companies and still serves as guidance for companies wishing to turn competitive intelligence into knowledge.
What we deliver
We help you develop winning strategies through customized services tailored to your needs.
Our Deliverables:
How We Deliver Better Intelligence
Our CI Principles ensure actionable Intelligence leading to high quality deliverables that support key decision making
Our Agile Methodology
Our Scrum Agile framework enables us to have effective collaboration with our clients, regular prioritization and sustainable delivery.
Proven CI Methodology
Our process on how to conduct CI has been published in Nature Biotechnology in 2005 in an article titled: “How to conduct competitive intelligence in your biotech startup”.
Download the Article
Leveraging Proven Results
It has been implemented with the top pharmaceutical companies and still serves as guidance for companies wishing to turn competitive intelligence into knowledge.
What we deliver
We help you develop winning strategies through customized services tailored to your needs.
Our Deliverables:
How We Deliver Better Intelligence
Our CI Principles ensure actionable Intelligence leading to high quality deliverables that support key decision making.
Our Agile Methodology
Our Scrum Agile framework enables us to have effective collaboration with our clients, regular prioritization and sustainable delivery.
How we deliver value
Competitive
Readiness
The First-Mover Risk: A pharma company was preparing to launch a first-to-market preventive therapy in a space with no approved treatments. However, two competitors with similar efficacy were close behind, quickly turning a blue-ocean opportunity into a competitive market. As a more conservative organization, the client was concerned about being underprepared for more agile and aggressive rivals.
Building Competitive Readiness at Launch: We assessed competitor launch strategies to shape a proactive, market-specific plan. Through targeted briefing packs and a competitor “shadow brand plan,” we enabled teams to anticipate rival moves and align on actions to preempt and counter competitive tactics.
Portfolio
Expansion
The Blockbuster at Risk: A pharma company faced the upcoming loss of exclusivity of a blockbuster drug, putting future revenue at risk. To protect and grow their portfolio, they were considering entry into a “hot” new MoA with potential to expand across multiple indications but lacked clarity on where to play and how to win.
Strategic Portfolio Expansion: We built in-depth indication landscapes and identified high-potential MoAs aligned to unmet needs. We then prioritized opportunities, highlighting near-term “low-hanging fruit” and longer-term growth areas. Based on our recommendations, the client acquired a high-potential asset and initiated significant investment, including Phase 3 plans in priority indications.
Pharma
Benchmarking
The Adoption Barrier: A pharma company was preparing to launch a drug with a new MoA in a therapeutic area with long-established practices and no recent innovation. With only modest clinical differentiation, the product’s main advantages were convenience and quality of life—raising concerns about whether this would be enough to shift entrenched prescribing habits.
Benchmarking and Service Strategy: We conducted competitor analysis and benchmarking to identify gaps and opportunities. In collaboration with the client, we defined a clear roadmap, leading to new patient support services such as home delivery and 1:1 mentoring, that supported adoption and retention.
“Thank you so much for everything.
You guys are a great part of our team.”
—
CI Lead at Top 10 Biotechnology firm
Awesome work, it was concise, strategic, exactly what we needed.
It made us smarter on the topic. I usually spend hours pairing down consultancy slides into a narrative but these are already there”
—
US Market Access Director for a Top 10 Pharma
and I have been working with many agencies before
this is exactly what we need, it is very clear, we know the threats and priorities now with the team, we have the recommendations, and I was able to share this with senior management to inform them on the focus areas for us”
—
Global CI and MR lead at a large Pharma company
I appreciate your team’s efforts in staying relevant,
accommodating, and providing relevant intelligence. I would like to say a BIG THANKS for bringing the critical intelligence which was leveraged by our global cross-functional team in various internal discussions and the decision-making process
—
Global CI manager for a large Pharma Company
but more importantly, you were able to validate which ones drove (Co. X and Y’s) success.
This project may shift our tactics and our brand plan.” (It did)
—
Global Brand Lead at Top 10 Pharma
really reconfirmed our initial analysis into this MoA”
—
Global Asset Lead
but want also to highlight the valuable comments/insights and challenges that you raised to us.
It demonstrates you truly got into the contents and our dynamics which – I imagine – might not be easy for an external agency, so really please accept compliments from the whole team”
—
Global Launch Lead
successfully navigate the complexities as well as the pace of the requests.
I sincerely appreciate everything the team does; I recognize that our team is not slowing down by any means. We are fortunate to have you and the team on our side.”
—
Global CI Director at Top 10 Biotechnology firm
Frequently asked questions
What sets Atacana apart comes down to four things:
- 1. Pharma domain expertise. Our founders and client facing team are former pharma executives who bring considerable knowledge and understanding of the day-to-day business challenges our clients face. This means we can relate, understand and help advise on best approaches to leverage CI to address these business needs.
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- 2. A published, proven CI methodology. Atacana's 9-step CI process was developed over 20 years across academic research, in-house pharma CI roles, and consulting engagements with key pharma players. Our CI process covers everything from intelligence requirements and collection planning to human intelligence gathering, analysis, reporting, and strategic activation.
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- 3. An exclusive HUMINT network. Built over 2 decades, we leverage a network of KOLs, principal investigators, MSLs, financial analysts, regulators, and commercial teams that allows us to access non-public intelligence to help address our clients’needs.
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- 4. AI-enhanced speed and integration. We use cutting-edge AI technology to accelerate insights, enhance data integration, and optimize resources without losing sight of the human expertise that gives intelligence its strategic value. Clients benefit from faster turnaround and broader coverage without sacrificing analytical depth.
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- The result: clients are never caught off-guard, make more confident decisions, and have more time to focus on what matters. At Atacana, we function as a true strategic extension of their CI team.
Atacana's 9-step CI process combines systematic published intelligence: databases, websites, and proprietary web crawlers, with an established Human Intelligence (HUMINT) network. Published sources include clinical trial registries, regulatory filings, earnings calls, broker reports, and conference outputs. Our HUMINT network spans KOLs, principal investigators, clinical trial sites, MSLs, financial analysts, patient advocacy groups, and corporate and commercial teams. Both streams are gathered proactively and systematically, then filtered and analyzed to deliver actionable, future-looking intelligence.
The Atacana team combines CI and pharma domain expertise across oncology, immunology, rare diseases, cardiovascular, respiratory, vaccines, and metabolic conditions. TA expertise is embedded at the leadership level and within the project specific teams.
Atacana operates under code of conduct that governs every engagement globally. All HUMINT is gathered using legal and ethical methods. Core principles include: never revealing a client's identity, never lying, cheating, or stealing, respecting all attempts to protect information, never pay honoraria when asking for sensitive competitive information, and treating ethical compliance as non-negotiable.
Client confidentiality is a foundational principle at Atacana, we never reveal a client's identity, and our code of conduct applies across all engagements. We assess the possibility of any conflicts of interest proactively during scoping discussions and only partner with one client per therapeutic area.
Atacana is a trusted partner to 9 of the top 10 pharma companies globally. Our leadership team has held senior CI and strategy roles at Novartis, Roche/Genentech, AstraZeneca, and our CI methodology has been established inside pharma and validated by major pharma organizations over two decades. Client references and case examples can be shared as part of our engagement scoping process.
