Signals Analytics upgrades its analytics engine for competitive insights

Last month, Signals Analytics, an Israeli firm that has provided business intelligence resources to pharma for several years, announced a new version, called the Pharma Playbook. According to Shlomi Madar, VP healthcare solutions at the firm, the announcement represents an important new stage in how analytic tools like the Playbook provide value.

In past years, Signals Analytics operated in the general category of business intelligence software, a grouping that usually relied on data sources internal to an organization (such as sales or ERP data). Today, the focus is on tapping into external sources. The problem there, however, is the need to harmonize data so that accurate evaluations can be conducted (experienced IT managers know that even with internal data only, harmonization can be an onerous task). Signals Analytics has relationships with many of the data providers commonly used in pharma business development, such as PubMed or ClinicalTrials.gov; with them (as well as numerous proprietary sources), Pharma Playbook offers to:

• Uncover competitors' strategies: Identify threats and benchmark markets and pipeline performance
• Prioritize an R&D pipeline: Benchmark clinical and preclinical concepts, reducing the opportunity cost of a pipeline to achieve a competitive advantage when a product hits the market
• Expose early innovation: Identify early drugs/concepts across categories and therapeutic areas
• Identify partnerships and M&A opportunities: Landscape, identify and benchmark potential companies for licensing, partnering and acquisition purposes.

All these potential applications are visualized in scorecarding dashboards, allowing clear ranking of opportunities, along with the evidence that backs up those insights. Madar notes that the data-gathering process is ongoing: the company is in the process of incorporating external sources such as patient discussions into its analytics engine as well.

Signals Analytics offers free trials of its platform to qualified users.