2026 is starting with a clearer sense of what commercialization teams can realistically take on, not because ambition has slowed but because industry is finding that its operating rhythm is being tested by an increasing pace and shifting customer expectations. The leaders we spoke with for our Commercialization That Works research aren’t focused on dramatic reinvention but on timing, alignment, and strong foundations — the basic ingredients that underpin strong, lasting execution.
As a result, teams are entering 2026 with a commitment to re-establishing that operational harmony, and their priorities fall into three categories that signal where teams are headed next:
- Ready to unwrap: Where leaders say they’re investing in 2026
- In the cart: High-value improvements still gaining buy-in
- Wish list: What teams want next but lack the structure to stick
🎁Ready to unwrap: Where leaders say they’re investing in 2026
To keep pace with a faster-moving commercialization environment, teams are focusing on the essentials: faster decision support, strategic brand and value approaches, and data excellence.
Advanced analytics: Investments in better decision support can accelerate action but will rely on signals moving quickly across teams
💡 Teams need faster visibility into payer shifts, access friction, customer needs, and early launch drift, and field signals are increasingly filling gaps in traditional data to surface emerging issues. Predictive modeling, early signal detection, and smarter scenario planning are viewed as tools to enable faster, better visibility:*
- #1 negative impact on commercialization included slow adoption of analytics and AI tools, leading to reactive decisions.
- 50% and 47% rated advanced analytics capabilities (e.g., predictive modeling) and field insights and pull-through measurement tools, respectively, as critical investment priorities over the next 12-18 months.
⏩ Better analytics will expose issues earlier, but the value will depend on being able to route the signals to the right teams and enable coordinated action across functions.
Value and access strategy: Early payer expectations and decisions heighten the stakes
💡 With payers making firmer and faster decisions, companies have less room to adjust once the launch is underway. This is pushing leaders to treat value and access strategy as the core of early launch readiness rather than a downstream refinement:*
- Brand (68%) and value and access (64%) strategies were ranked as top make-or-break differentiators over the next 12-18 months.
- Top 3 success factors for commercialization include early access planning and clear payer value propositions.
⏩ Companies that invest early in value and access strategy will enter the market stronger and shape payer expectations, while those who delay face slower uptake and fewer opportunities to correct course once payer positions are set.
Best practice data ecosystem: Data excellence has become a strategic differentiator as teams work to unify fragmented systems
💡 Teams are prioritizing data infrastructure to fix persistent weaknesses in data completeness, system fragmentation, and outdated platforms. As unified data ecosystems emerge as a top success factor, data excellence is now seen as a competitive necessity rather than an operational upgrade:*
- #2 factor for successful commercialization involved unified data ecosystems across commercial, clinical, and market access data.
- 49% cited data excellence as a top make-or-break differentiator over the next 12-18 months.
- 49% rated commercial data infrastructure (e.g., data lake/house, tokenization) as a critical investment priority over the next 12-18 months.
⏩ Stronger data foundations will make analytics and AI more trustworthy, but their full impact will be felt when organizations can apply them seamlessly and consistently across teams, workflows, and portfolios.
“For successful commercialization, execution and pull-through early on, including every single piece around reimbursement such as a REMS and what it’s going to take to fill a prescription, are important. That level of granularity is critical.” — Global head of commercial insights and analytics, global pharma company
🛒 In the cart: High-value improvements still gaining buy-in
Leaders are still debating how much to invest and when for better planning rhythm, platform consolidation, and omnichannel orchestration, in part because these capabilities can lack clear budget lines or obvious functional owners. As a result, momentum exists, but organizational commitment remains uneven.
Alignment enablers: Automation could unlock alignment, but investment isn’t there yet
💡 Execs cited cross-functional alignment and early planning as the top success factor for commercialization, yet investment in enablers, such as cross-functional process automation, remains tentative:*
- #1 success factor involved cross-functional alignment and coordination among clinical, regulatory, market access, and commercial functions.
- Cross-functional coordination was considered a key factor for confidence in launch planning horizons.
- Only 20% considered cross-functional process automation a critical investment priority over the next 12-18 months.
⏩ Automation has the potential to synchronize workflows and facilitate decision-making across forecasting, access, analytics, IC, and field teams, but its impact will depend on whether organizations treat it as an enabler or a nice-to-have add-on.
Platform unification: Integration can unlock scale once data and rules are stabilized
💡 Interest in platform unification is increasing as vendor sprawl, duplicative tools, and inflexible solutions drive up cost and complexity. However, most are sequencing consolidation behind the data and governance fixes needed to avoid rework and risk:*
- 77% of data and analytics execs cited interoperability between platforms as a key trade-off for data-related decisions.
- Only 25% considered integrated tech stack/platform unification a critical investment priority over the next 12-18 months.
⏩ Consolidating the tech stack could reduce complexity and support analytics at scale, but progress will likely remain slow until teams have the stable data foundations necessary to make unification stick.
Omnichannel coordination: Omnichannel is improving at the tactical level but lacks cohesion
💡Omnichannel is gaining more attention as launches become more dynamic, but execution remains uneven:*
- 40% ranked omnichannel coordination tools as a secondary investment priority over the next 12-18 months.
- 87% and 57% of HCP and patient marketers still define omnichannel success through engagement and agility, respectively.
- Only 27% of marketers measure omnichannel success using business outcomes or cross-functional alignment.
⏩ Channel performance will keep improving, but orchestration will remain tactical rather than fully connected until teams establish ownership, assign clear budget lines, and unify workflows, governance, and outcome-based measures.
“From year minus 2 to year plus one of launch, everybody is involved. There are decisions being made in a core group, to provide a centralized system and consistent information flow. The environment being created during these years has to be scalable, and that allows you to collaborate better with a consistent story and plan.” — Amit Grover, AVP, Commercial Excellence, Stemline Therapeutics, in our webinar.
⭐ Wish list: What teams want next but lack the structure to stick
Execs consistently pointed to & AI enablement, agile operations, and consistent, repeatable frameworks as critical for confident launch planning and beyond ,but they remain aspirational while organizations work through foundational gaps.
AI enablement: AI is embedded in the work but not yet scaled across the organization
💡 Across functions, AI sits on the wish list, not as a flashy new experiment but as a practical lever teams expect to shape the next stage of commercialization:*
- 57% of commercial ops execs expect the sales model to shift toward AI-enabled next-best actions.
- 43% of HCP and patient marketers see advanced analytics and AI/ML as critical for a company’s ability to meaningfully understand and engage customers.
- 57% of data and analytics leaders view GenAI and agentic AI as a critical investment priority.
- Only 19% of execs overall view AI enablement as a top make or break differentiator for commercialization.
⏩ This signals that AI is not being deprioritized; it’s being absorbed into functional workflows and selectively applied to strategic use cases rather than scaled enterprise wide. Therefore, its long-term impact will depend on whether organizations shift from isolated use cases to a more coordinated approach and understanding across teams.
Agile operating model: Ability to flex could strengthen confidence, but gaps keep it aspirational
💡 Leaders increasingly want a more agile operating model — one that keeps planning confidence steady by adapting to regulatory, payer, and market shifts. However, true agility remains out of reach for many:*
- Only 40% of comm ops execs use agile workflows during launch planning.
- Only 23% of comm ops execs expect adaptive planning tools to become a staple.
- 63% say vendor solutions that are inflexible or slow to adapt hold them back.
⏩ Without shared workflows and stronger governance, agility will stay on the wish list rather than becoming a dependable capability, limiting how quickly teams can respond to real-world changes.
Trusted, repeatable framework: Launch confidence grows with established playbooks, but governance gaps persist
💡 Teams want more repeatable frameworks and experienced launch models to increase their planning confidence. Yet, most organizations lack this foundation:*
- 60% are in launch teams who haven’t worked together before.
- Only 13% of comm ops execs centralize launch governance.
- #1 barrier to internal stakeholder coordination is a lack of a centralized, responsible person for oversight of coordination.
⏩ Without a single owner for coordination, defined milestones, and mechanisms to carry lessons forward, repeatable processes will remain a wish-list capability rather than a standard practice, keeping teams from building the predictable launch rhythm they need.
“Not learning from previous launches, not leveraging best practices: we tend to make the same mistakes over and over again, but we can continue to improve, including understanding the external landscape with access, reimbursement, drug pricing. Scenario planning is a new approach that we are learning and adapting.” — Global head of commercial insights and analytics, global large biopharma
If you’d like to explore the full dataset, including cuts by company size, function, and launch experience, reach out. We’re happy to walk you through the insights and what they mean for your 2026 planning.
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*Survey of 120 life sciences commercialization executives; specific data and analytics, HCP and patient marketers, market access, and commercial operations segments: n=30 each