How biotech startups are learning the hard way that breakthrough therapies need breakthrough marketing strategies
When Melbourne-based Cartherics appointed U.S. biotech executive Laurence Nore to its board, it was a smart strategic move, but it also highlighted a harsh reality that many biotech startups face: having world-class science means nothing if you can’t navigate the brutal complexity of healthcare markets.
Nore’s appointment brings crucial U.S. market expertise, regulatory know-how, and strong investor ties to the Australian company. But in an exclusive interview, she opens up about the deeper issue: why fixing the core marketing failures that are sinking promising biotech firms before they ever reach patients is far harder than it looks.
“In addition, start up biotech companies often have limited budget for marketing, making it hard to compete with established companies in outreach, branding and sales,” Nore explains. It’s a struggle that’s becoming increasingly common as brilliant innovations die in the valley between laboratory success and market reality.
The brutal truth about biotech marketing
For biotech founders, the marketing challenge isn’t just about getting noticed – it’s about survival in an ecosystem that doesn’t care how groundbreaking your science is. The numbers are sobering: most biotech companies fail not because their science is flawed, but because they can’t convince the right people that their solution matters.
“The challenge is to understand all the players that will preferably drive US market adoption and when to engage with them, especially in situations when the company has no established relationships,” Nore says. “Brand positioning ensures that the company thinks about the market fit of its innovation early on, rather than develops its technology and then searches for an application,” she explains.
This backwards approach is killing companies before they even get started. Unlike consumer products where you market to one decision-maker, biotech companies face a three-headed monster of stakeholders, each with different motivations, timelines, and languages.
The Prescriber Puzzle: Healthcare professionals don’t just prescribe based on efficacy. They’re influenced by tumor boards, institutional policies, peer pressure, and workflow constraints. “Prescribers: who are the health care professionals (HCPs) prescribing the drug, how do they make their prescription decisions? Are there others involved in the decision- for example in oncology tumor boards are critical- include pathologists, surgeons? Which product attributes will be most convincing for them?” Nore explains.
The Payer Trap: Insurance companies and health systems operate on completely different logic than doctors. They want health economic data, real-world evidence, and cost-effectiveness analyses that most startups haven’t even thought about collecting. “Payors: who are the most important payers for my product (public such as Medicare, private)? Are products in the same disease area/class of drug currently covered and reimbursed? What are their list prices and expected rebates for what kind of formulary levels? Will my product attributes command a premium? What health economic endpoints will the company need to include in its clinical trials to generate the data supportive of coverage and reimbursement?” Nore asks.
The Patient Journey Maze: Patients don’t just follow prescriptions. They navigate complex access barriers, insurance approvals, and treatment compliance challenges. “Patients: what is the current patient journey and where are the barriers to access? Who influences their treatment choices? Do they fill their prescriptions? Are they compliant with their treatment? What proportion is covered by public plans, private plans, uninsured?” These aren’t just questions – they’re the difference between theoretical market size and actual revenue.
The credibility crisis: When nobody knows your name
Building credibility without brand recognition is like trying to get a loan without credit history – it’s a catch-22 that destroys promising companies.
“How can emerging biotech companies build credibility and trust without the brand recognition or resources of larger players?” It’s the question keeping biotech CEOs awake at night.
The startup credibility playbook
According to Nore, there are ways to build credibility that don’t require massive marketing budgets, but they require strategic thinking:
Target Product Profile as Strategy: “Dedicate cross-functional efforts to develop the Target Product Profile to ensure clinically meaningful product differentiation and possibly identify smaller, less competitively crowded market segments.” This isn’t just positioning – it’s about finding winnable battles.
KOL Strategy Beyond the Big Names: “Engage with the ‘up and coming’ physicians who will be more affordable, sometimes more creative and enthusiastic.” The top-tier key opinion leaders are expensive and often already committed to competitors. The rising stars are hungry for good partnerships.
Patient Advocacy as Foundation: “Engage with patient advocacy groups to include the patients’ voice early on and obtain feedback on product attributes.” For limited budgets, sponsoring small programs important to advocacy groups builds trust without major investment.
The communication nightmare: Making complex science stick
“What strategies have you found effective in simplifying complex science for broader audiences: investors, partners, or the media?” This question reveals one of biotech’s biggest marketing failures.
Most biotech companies are terrible at explaining what they do. They hide behind jargon, focus on mechanisms instead of outcomes, and assume their audience understands the science. They don’t.
“Focus on the problem the company is trying to solve from the patients’ and physicians’ perspectives and articulate the benefits of the future treatment for them,” Nore advises. This sounds simple, but it’s revolutionary for companies that typically start with molecular pathways and work backwards.
“Forming a Patient Advisory Group could be very helpful in testing the messages to ensure the science behind the product is comprehensible for broader audiences.” If patients can’t understand your value proposition, investors won’t either.
“Developing a mechanism of action (MOA) video with medical animation studios can help translate complex scientific concepts into easy to grasp messages and memory visuals.” Visual storytelling isn’t nice-to-have – it’s essential for cutting through the noise.
Brand positioning: The strategic asset most startups ignore
“In your view, what role does brand positioning play in the success of early-stage biotech firms?” This question gets to the heart of why so many biotech companies struggle with marketing.
Brand positioning isn’t marketing fluff – it’s strategic infrastructure. “Brand positioning ensures that the company thinks about the market fit of its innovation early on, rather than develops its technology and then searches for an application,” Nore explains.
It brings internal alignment on three critical areas:
- Understanding the pain points that actually matter to stakeholders
- Articulating a value proposition that’s truly differentiated and meaningful
- Generating evidence that builds trust and credibility with investors and partners
Without this foundation, all marketing efforts become expensive guesswork.
The visibility struggle: Getting noticed on no budget
“What advice would you give to biotech startups trying to gain visibility and traction internationally on a limited marketing budget?” This is where theory meets brutal reality. Nore’s approach focuses on systematic visibility building rather than scattered marketing efforts:
Message Development: Start with aspirational messages about technology novelty, pain points, and differentiated product attributes. Then identify the supporting data needed over time.
Channel Strategy: Determine where data and messages will be made available – key scientific conferences, company websites, patient advocacy platforms, and social media.
Format Planning: Plan for abstracts, posters, oral presentations, webinars, MOA videos, and media articles.
Timeline Reality: “Prepare a detailed multi-year calendar that allows for flexibility to adapt to changing market priorities and news cycles.”
“The plan will initially have many gaps, but it will provide a roadmap early on and will help the company gain visibility among critical stakeholders – future prescribers, investors, pharma partners and future patients.”
Cartherics’ story illustrates a broader struggle for biotech companies worldwide. Australia offers incredible innovation advantages – cutting-edge research infrastructure, favorable R&D incentives, and geopolitical neutrality. But domestic market limitations force companies to think globally from day one.
“Australia is uniquely positioned to balance innovation with pragmatism,” Nore observes. But pragmatism includes acknowledging that great science needs great marketing to survive.
The human cost of marketing failures
For Nore, joining Cartherics isn’t just about business strategy. Having lost a close friend to aggressive renal cancer, she understands what’s at stake when marketing failures prevent breakthrough therapies from reaching patients.
“Cartherics represents hope,” she shares. “I want to be part of this journey.”
This extends to the company’s work in endometriosis, where marketing failures have real consequences. “Women can spend years navigating the healthcare system before receiving a diagnosis for endometriosis – one that is often invasive. Current treatments don’t target the root cause. That has to change.”
The stakes aren’t just financial – they’re human. The biotech industry is facing a marketing reckoning. Great science isn’t enough anymore. Companies that master the complex art of healthcare marketing – understanding stakeholder ecosystems, building credibility strategically, and communicating value clearly – will survive and thrive.
Marketing in biotech isn’t just about promotion. The companies that understand this reality are the ones that will ultimately bring life-changing therapies to patients who need them.
Those that don’t will join the graveyard of brilliant innovations that never made it to market. The choice is brutal but simple: learn to market, or watch your science die in obscurity.
Keep up to date with our stories on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
