Accelerating Time-to-Market
of Vital Diagnostics

BD Diagnostics – Diagnostic Systems

“GLG is invaluable in any situation where the voice of customers, voice of market, or voice of technology is critical and time sensitive.”

John Meduri
Director, Strategic Planning and Business Development,
BD Diagnostics – Diagnostic Systems

John Meduri works to help create advanced technologies for the early detection of disease—technologies designed to help save lives around the world…and the clock is always ticking.

Meduri is a member of the strategic planning and business development team at BD Diagnostics, Diagnostic Systems, a business unit of global medical technology company BD. The unit is part of the BD Diagnostics segment, which is a leading provider of products for the safe collection and transport of diagnostic specimens, as well as instruments and reagent systems to accurately detect a broad range of infectious diseases, healthcare-associated infections, and cancers. Healthcare institutions, life science researchers, clinical laboratories, and consumers all rely upon its technologies.

Meduri and his team are on the front lines of developing and commercializing technologies for the early detection of disease, working to identify the best opportunities to usher through the pipeline. To make the best decisions, they need superior market intelligence—and they need it fast.

The World’s Marketplace for Expertise

GLG provides technology and services to support a marketplace for expertise and manages the world’s leading expert network, helping more than 850 client companies find, engage, and manage^SM experts. When clients need to deepen their understanding of a company, an industry, or a market, they turn to GLG for relevant, hard-to-find, authoritative experts from the GLG Councils^SM—a network of more than 200,000 experts worldwide.

“The ability to access insights so quickly from influential thought leaders is vital to assessing new opportunities, formulating our strategic plans, and reducing cycle time so we can develop products that save lives,” says Meduri.

A Golden Opportunity

In one instance, BD was looking at a disease state that progresses rapidly with a high mortality rate. Numerous diagnostic tools were already on the market, but the team was exploring a new technology that would pinpoint the disease long before the patient exhibited symptoms. This product could help save lives while providing significant cost savings to the healthcare continuum through early detection. However, it represented a relatively new paradigm to BD and to diagnostics in general. The team needed fast access to a new league of experts to evaluate the opportunity effectively and expeditiously.

The Solution

Meduri tapped GLG to engage practicing physicians working in this disease pathway. GLG arranged telephone consultations between BD Diagnostics and practicing physicians who treat patients with this indication every day, all within the confines of a carefully structured compliance system.

The GLG Disclosure Management System^SM tracks Council Member conflicts to help clients avoid risk. GLG Systems also systematically collect information about Council Member expertise to help identify the most useful experts. BD Diagnostics’ dedicated GLG research professionals leverages these and other proprietary GLG Systems to accelerate and maximize client research.

The Result

According to Meduri, these consultations delivered valuable insight around the anticipated adoption, acceptance, and usage of this novel diagnostic, as well as the perceived medical and economic value it could bring to the healthcare continuum—all well ahead of market entry. The team leveraged the information to develop a strategic plan that gained management approval for the initiative.

“We gleaned timely intelligence from practicing physicians with firsthand knowledge of the market, giving us a window into the possibilities around this technology,” says Meduri. “At the end of the day, this could help us put a product in the hands of physicians faster.”

Speed to Insight

Without GLG, Meduri says that finding and engaging the right KOLs would require a substantial time investment—particularly when exploring novel diagnostics and unfamiliar markets. The GLG model reduces the administrative hassles associated with expert consulting—from initial identification of experts to contract negotiations and signed agreements.

“Time spent managing this process would increase cycle time dramatically,” says Meduri, who manages many expert relationships for BD Diagnostics, making him acutely aware of the time-consuming administrative process. “GLG lifts that burden so we can focus on our goals.”

Surveys: Going Beyond the Aggregate

Meduri realized additional value through GLG when the team was exploring the process by which pharmaceutical companies develop new anti-infective agents used to treat disorders caused by microbial pathogens.

GLG helped formulate a custom survey and distributed it to a targeted group of more than 20 anti-infective agent experts. The fast turnaround time and non-traditional survey methodology—which goes beyond yes-or-no answers for detailed commentary around responses—exceeded Meduri’s expectations.

“The number of detailed responses provided in the survey was very powerful. Beyond that, we were able to call survey participants whose responses sparked more questions on our end, giving us additional perspective directly from the respondents,” says Meduri. “This brings tremendous value to our process and has the potential to open doors to new opportunities.”

Complementing Internal Resources to Maximize Growth

Meduri and his team have come to rely on the GLG network for expert insights that help BD Diagnostics leverage new opportunities, drive productivity, add value to the healthcare continuum, and ultimately deliver shareholder value—all while knowing it is the patient who wins in the end.

“My role is to proactively assess strategic partnership opportunities that will help us advance our mission and achieve our goals—and those opportunities simply cannot wait,” says Meduri. “GLG supplements and complements our existing capabilities, arming us with real-time information that will enable our strategies and give us the growth opportunities we need to become a great company.”

“GLG supplements and complements our existing capabilities, arming us with real-time information that will enable our strategies and give us the growth opportunities we need to become a great company.”

John Meduri
Director, Strategic Planning and Business Development,
BD Diagnostics – Diagnostic Systems