Strategic Rx: Guiding a Tech Titan’s Move into Life Sciences

The Client

Our client is one of the world’s top 10 largest publicly traded companies—a global technology leader on a mission to build the future of human connection. Best known for its "Family of Apps," the company also invests heavily in virtual and augmented reality technologies, advancing the way people connect, communicate, and collaborate. As it expands its footprint into health and life sciences, the client is pursuing bold new opportunities at the intersection of healthcare innovation and digital platforms.

With an emerging product poised to enter the highly regulated U.S. healthcare market, the client sought expert guidance to shape a comprehensive go-to-market strategy tailored to the unique challenges of launching in life sciences.

The Challenge

The company needed a seasoned consultant to lead go-to-market strategy development for a new product with potential life sciences applications. Unlike traditional tech rollouts, this product required a deep understanding of medical reimbursement frameworks, regulatory strategy, and commercialization paths across various healthcare channels.

The consultant’s mandate included:

• Structuring key strategic questions related to market entry, pricing, and adoption
• Conducting primary and secondary market research across life sciences domains
• Building a fact base of channel partners, market archetypes, and reimbursement pathways
• Synthesizing insights into actionable scenarios and GTM recommendations

Given the high visibility of the initiative, the ideal candidate needed a rare mix of:

• Strategy consulting pedigree with a focus in life sciences (pharma, biotech, or med device)
• Expertise in reimbursement and regulatory navigation in the U.S. healthcare system
• Experience with Software as a Medical Device (SaMD) and digital health commercialization
• The agility to operate across both structured analysis and fluid innovation environments

Our Approach

We launched a targeted search focused on consultants with cross-functional experience at the intersection of health tech, market access, and commercialization strategy. Our search criteria prioritized:

• Senior strategy consultants with 3-5+ years of experience in pharma, med device, or digital health
• Backgrounds in top-tier consulting firms with exposure to go-to-market and reimbursement challenges
• Recent experience advising or leading GTM strategies for novel technologies in healthtech or biotech
• Familiarity with provider, payer, and regulatory stakeholders in the U.S. market

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We cast a wide but curated net, engaging professionals from life sciences consultancies, commercial advisory boutiques, and former startup operators with strategy experience in digital therapeutics and SaMD.

The Placement

The consultant ultimately selected brought over two decades of healthcare experience and an exceptional track record of commercial strategy leadership:

• Former BCG consultant and seasoned business leader with 20+ years in healthtech, biotech, and digital health
• Extensive GTM experience across commercial operations, marketing, customer service, sales, and pricing
• Recently advised multiple biotech clients on commercialization strategy, including product launch and market entry assessments
• Strong understanding of the full healthcare value chain—providers, wholesalers, retail, payors, and regulators
• Demonstrated success scaling commercial teams and building innovative, access-driven brands and services

Their deep experience and strategic versatility made them uniquely positioned to lead a complex GTM initiative within a high-growth tech ecosystem.

The Outcome

In partnership with internal stakeholders, the consultant delivered a high-impact engagement that included:

• A market deep-dive identifying potential commercial drivers, weaknesses, and differentiators
• An analysis of business models across relevant channel partners and adjacent product categories
• Industry fact bases and case studies across four comparable product launch archetypes

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The client walked away with a clear, evidence-based view of the market landscape and actionable recommendations to inform commercialization strategy.

This engagement not only advanced the company’s strategic thinking around healthcare market entry—it also underscored the value of pairing functional expertise with agile, high-level consulting talent capable of bridging tech and life sciences innovation.