Lifescience Dynamics is a decision support consultancy helping clients manage complex strategic issues. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Lifescience Dynamics president and founder Rafaat Rahmani to learn more.
Rafaat Rahmani’s Background
[Credit: Lifescience Dynamics]
Rahmani has a truly international background. Rahmani said:
“I was born in India, brought up in Oman/UAE, gained a business degree in the USA, and an MBA from Manchester Business School in the UK. As well as the UK, I have worked in the USA, India, Abu Dhabi, and Dubai.”
“Prior to founding Lifescience Dynamics, I was Vice President of a London-based consulting practice where I was responsible for numerous international projects for top 10 pharmaceutical companies, focusing on all aspects of the clinical development and commercialization environments at US, European, and global levels. I have advanced knowledge of the commercialization of drugs, such as competitive intelligence, qualitative and quantitative market research techniques, market access, pricing, and reimbursements. I also previously worked for Eli Lilly & Company, Pepsi-Cola, and McDonald’s in a management training program.”
Formation Of Lifescience Dynamics
How did the idea for the company come together? Rahmani shared:
“In the summer of 2004, I founded Lifescience Dynamics with my wife, Ayesha. I had a vision of what would start a people-centric global consulting firm’s clients and employees alike but with the highest ethical standards dedicated exclusively to life sciences, pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and MedTech industries. It would have to be the best-in-class market research, competitive intelligence, and market access, combined with supported by first-rate people, multi-cultural, multi-lingual, and a business model that is for long-term relationships and partnerships with clients to meet their clients’ global insight and foresight requirements.”
“When we first started out in the U.K., we struggled to break into the pharmaceutical and biotech industries with our consulting services.
Getting a meeting was impossible with established companies. As an immigrant who did not have a formal education until the age of 12, I was an outsider, and many doors were closed to me in London.”
“Entrepreneurs, however, thrive on solving problems. If we could not make headway in our own backyard, then I set my eyes on exporting our services to the U.S., Japan, and other parts of Europe. In order to compete on a global level, I set out to hire world-class talents from the UK’s top five universities and targeted international students studying for their PhDs in life science at world-famous prestigious universities. I was able to show them an alternative career path to academia, and these international freshly graduated PhDs were not welcomed by London-based companies due to un-conscious racism as the leaders at that time preferred to hire people like themselves. My premise was that it is easier to teach and train bright and intelligent life scientists in business than to train them in pure life science. The formula proved correct, and now, many of our competitors follow my talent model. London boasts top 10 universities within 2-3 hours of driving distance. The top 5 UK universities attract students from all around the globe, which gives a greater talent pool. Studying in one of the best British universities helps students to develop both the left and right side of the brain – logical, linear thinking with abstract and creative thinking; which sets them on a great career trajectory.”
“We also built a division of subject matter experts by going outside of England and hiring high caliber Ph.D. consultants throughout Europe who also could not get their foot in the door of the establishment.”
Favorite Memory
What has been your favorite memory working for the company so far? Rahmani reflected:
“I would say the best memory was receiving the Queen’s Award in 2016 and the King’s Award in 2023 for our outstanding achievement in delivering growth in exports of our consulting services. I met the late Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace when our company accepted the award then and met King Charles this year when my company accepted the Kings Award. Both occasions were memories I will never forget, considering I grew up in abject poverty to be standing before the Queen and King at Buckingham Palace.”
Challenges Faced
What challenges has Rahmani faced in building the company? Rahmani acknowledged:
“We faced typical challenges as with all new businesses (Finding customers, Funding, Cash flow, Increasing Brand Awareness, Talent acquisition and retention, and Delivering high-quality projects); however, our challenge was even higher for these reasons:
1.) Being an immigrant – a minority – Indian Muslim
2.) Having a young family of three kids where I was the sole earner
3.) I had two years of non-compete in working with key clients
4.) I was an outsider
5.) Not having life science background
Core Products
What are Lifescience Dynamics’ core products and features? Rahmani explained:
“The company’s core products are our core decision support practice areas that help life science companies (pharmaceutical, biotechnology, diagnostics, and medical devices) with strategic insight and foresight to improve their assumptions, enabling them to make better decisions. The company works across five practice areas: Market Research (qualitative and quantitative), Competitive Intelligence (primary and secondary research), Market Access (pricing and reimbursement), real-world evidence, and strategic advisory.”
Evolution Of Lifescience Dynamics’ Technology
How has the Lifescience Dynamics technology evolved since launching? Rahmani noted:
“The pharmaceutical industry is a dynamic sector that is always evolving. In order to succeed, companies need to be able to develop and market new drugs and treatments effectively as new challenges and opportunities arise. Lifescience Dynamics developed these software programs and services as a way to help life science companies of every size stay abreast of the latest developments in research. The five new tools include:
1.) DynamicsTracker: The proprietary, cloud-based platform DynamicsTracker allows for fast, accurate, and easy clinical trial monitoring. This tool has live API feeds from ct.gov and other paid databases in real-time. DynamicsTracker is an in-house built from the ground up tool with 20 years of collective CI experience, which acts as the clinical trial hub for any CI project. A single repository for clinical trials of interest, automatically updating in real-time and alerting you of changes that occur – one source of truth.
2.) DynamicsPlanner: The proprietary, cloud-based platform powered by custom scripts written and leveraging the power of Excel. The planners are fast, accurate, comprehensive, and fully formatted for easy navigation and 48-72 hours turnaround after the freezing of the conference agenda. The planners are presented in a spreadsheet format with multiple tabs for multi-day conferences for teams looking to improve their efficiency, accuracy, and speed throughout their organization. It is designed and laid out in an intuitive and easy-to-read format.
User-friendliness is paramount and therefore, everything is set up for easy navigation with outlines of all sessions and abstracts, identified diseases, products, and MOAs to help make the most of conference attendance.
3.) DynamicsView: The proprietary, cloud-based platform powered by Tableau. DynamicsView is a competitive intelligence tool used to visualize clinical and commercial data from primary and secondary sources. The product leverages the immense power of Tableau and Lifescience Dynamics’ deep competitive intelligence expertise to build and perform ad hoc analyses. DynamicsView transforms multiple filtered datasets into visual graphs accessed in a bespoke interactive dashboard, providing seamless and lucid data interpretation for clients.
4.) IntelliCentral 2.0: IntelliCentral, a CI command hub; provides a comprehensive view of competitive activities in a central, convenient location. It has a built-in DynamicsTracker for visualization of the competitive landscape in real-time. This custom-written application enables it to integrate intelligence from diverse sources such as alerts, earning calls, primary human intelligence, medical conferences, and a range of databases, ultimately helping to make informed decisions and, therefore, enhance strategy. It supports global, regional, and country-level brand teams to assimilate and curate competitive news and information for their Key Intelligence Questions. With 20 years of Competitive Intelligence expertise behind it, IntelliCentral has been designed from the ground up with user experience. This tool is a Web and Mobile-friendly tool that transforms intricate data points into easily understandable visual elements, including alerts, graphs, landscapes, or timelines. It provides seamless information accessibility with an intelligent tagging system and a robust search function, effectively facilitating productive, data-centric discussions among your team with its advanced collaboration features.
5.) iAdboard: A proprietary, cloud-based platform. A tool that was designed to mimic round table discussion but virtually. iAdboard, is an invitation-only virtual discussion platform. It harnesses the power of the collective thinking of physicians, payers, patients, and experts and is a real alternative to the traditional methods of focus groups and advisory boards. It is a bespoke application and has been developed by the market research and market access experts of Lifescience Dynamics Limited.
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Rahmani cited:
“There have been many milestones, as with all companies, such as reaching first £1 million ($1.3 million) in sales, then crossing £5m and so on.
Also, we moved our headquarters to central London in 2014. Winning our first big project worth $250,000 back in 2005 from a top 10 pharma company. Plus, winning Queen’s Award in 2016 and the Kings’ Award in 2023.”
Customer Success Story
Can you share any specific customer success stories? Rahmani highlighted:
“The pharmaceutical industry is highly regulated, and hence, confidentiality is paramount. Therefore, we can not speak about any of our projects. Having said that, we have played pivotal roles in launching many successful medicines and defending our client’s franchise. For example, we helped one client generate an additional $400 million annually from an asset that had LOE – lost its exclusivity, and was preparing for imminent generic invasion. There have been countless successes such as this one.”
Funding/Revenue
After asking Rahmani about the company’s funding and revenue metrics, he revealed:
“We started with my own personal $10,000 funding. Over 19 years, we have taken zero funding, zero borrowings and zero debt. There has been no investor than my original $10,000 with no partners and now we are in excess of $25 million to $50 million annual sales.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates Lifescience Dynamics from the competition? Rahmani affirmed:
“Our people, our culture, our customer-centric business model. We are known in the industry as a premium company for the highest quality consulting with white glove service with industry-leading ethical standards. We have made a strategic decision not to offshore as almost all our competitors have offices in India, China, or the Philippines.”
Future Goals
What are some of the company’s future company goals? Rahmani concluded:
“Our plans are growing organically and adding more practice areas across the value chain of our clients in the pharmaceutical industry.”
