Key Takeaways
- Pharma companies should shift from viewing product launches as an endpoint to treating them as the beginning of an iterative process guided by roadmaps, feedback, and communication.
- Successful iteration requires flexible roadmaps, structured feedback loops, and the ability to pivot quickly when market realities don’t align with initial assumptions.
- Clear communication across cross-functional teams—explaining assumptions, new insights, and pivots—helps organizations adapt rapidly and turn challenges into coordinated solutions.
I have argued that more pharma companies need to move away from one-shot product launches and think instead in terms of product iteration. Product launches exhaust huge amounts of time and capital—and too often disappoint. That’s in part because invariably the market doesn’t respond exactly as anticipated, and the company isn’t agile enough to quickly pivot and evolve, because they’ve been so focused on the launch.
Once you buy into the idea that launches aren’t the end stage, they’re just the beginning of a longer journey—then the question becomes: what are the keys to successful product iteration? In my experience, having worked on iteration cycles for multiple products, there are three critical components: the roadmap, the feedback, and the communication.
The real-world impact of this philosophy became clear to me during the launch of a new women's health therapy, where our approach to iteration was tested—and ultimately, changed our trajectory.
A product roadmap is more than a checklist
The product roadmap is often seen as a master plan—a sequential list of features and improvements that will roll out after the minimum viable product (MVP) hits the market. In practice, however, the roadmap can become rigid, ossified by the very process meant to make it adaptable. Teams tend to fill the next version (say, v1.1) with everything that didn’t make the MVP cut, treating it as a fixed to-do list rather than a living document responsive to market realities.
This approach misses the core purpose of iteration: to adapt based on real-world user feedback. If the roadmap is locked before the MVP even reaches customers, organizations risk missing critical market signals. The result is a disconnect between what’s planned and what’s actually needed, especially when commercial and development teams operate in silos.
Making room for the unknown
The heart of successful product iteration lies in how feedback is gathered and acted upon. In our launch of a therapy for women’s health, we learned that real-world feedback doesn’t always align with initial assumptions based on a target product profile—and it rarely arrives on a predictable schedule. For example, we assumed our product’s once-daily dosing would be its main competitive advantage over a twice-daily alternative. But once in the market, we discovered that physicians weren’t comparing us to our direct competitor at all. Instead, they were handing out samples of oral contraceptives that were not designed to treat the disease state—which was creating an entirely different benchmark. Patients were faced with the choice of seeking coverage for our product (at least at the outset) or getting free samples of the other. The choice was pretty easy for them.
This realization forced us to pivot. Rather than sticking rigidly to the roadmap, we redirected resources to launch our own sample program—leveraging work on new packaging that was already in progress for future iterations. This flexibility allowed us to address the true barrier to adoption: initial product access, not dosing convenience.
The key strategies for feedback integration include:
- Explicit feedback checkpoints. Build time points for feedback into the roadmap, not just as an afterthought but as a core part of the development plan.
- Capacity for change. Maintain organizational flexibility—both in workload and mindset—to accommodate new requests that arise from feedback.
- Assumption audits. Regularly revisit and challenge the assumptions underpinning your strategy. If the market tells you something new, be prepared to pivot, not just tweak.
A better communications framework
Communication is the connective tissue between strategy and execution. In cross-functional teams, especially in the life sciences, different groups (R&D, commercial, regulatory, supply chain) often think and operate in fundamentally different ways. When priorities shift due to new feedback, friction can arise if the “why” behind changes isn’t clearly articulated. To address this, we implemented a simple but powerful communications framework:
- State the original assumption. Clearly lay out what you believed and why.
- Present the new input. Share the feedback or data that challenges the original plan.
- Explain the pivot. Connect the dots between new information and the need to reprioritize.
- Democratize the problem. Broadcast the challenge widely—because often, adjacent teams are already working on solutions that can be adapted quickly.
This approach proved invaluable in our work with the therapy for women’s health. When we needed to accelerate the sample program, sharing the problem statement and changed assumptions allowed packaging and supply chain teams to offer ready-made solutions. What could have been a months-long scramble became a rapid, coordinated response.
Ultimately, product iteration isn’t just about adding features or fixing bugs. It’s about building an organization that can learn, adapt, and win—one feedback loop at a time.
Jessica Meng is Chief Commercial Officer at CareDx
