Tenthpin
Making the Difference in Life Sciences

As digitalization is reshaping every aspect of business, the life sciences industry is also adopting futuristic technologies for strategic transformation. These evolving technologies seamlessly mobilize data within organizations, opening up a new realm for life sciences workflows. However, the predicament lies in choosing the right technology to achieve this transformation. With a primary focus on delivering innovation, and value to patients through best-fit technologies, Tenthpin has a solution to this challenge.

Founded in 2017 by five ex-Big 4 consultants well versed with the global life sciences markets, Tenthpin, a global management consulting firm, is on a mission to make a difference in the industry with its innovative and effective solutions. Headquartered in Basel, Switzerland— the European hotspot for the pharmaceutical industry— Tenthpin provides independent advice and consulting services to traditional pharmaceuticals, biotech, medical technology, animal health, and clinical research companies. Today, Tenthpin comprises over 150 consultants and more than 20 clients across the globe.

In an interview with CIO Applications, Michael Schmidt, Partner and Co-Founder at Tenthpin, shares his insights on the company’s value proposition, and the industry-grade SAP services it brings to the market.

What are the challenges you see brewing in the life sciences space, and how does Tenthpin address them?

The life sciences industry today is at the crossroads, riddled with paradigm shifts from treatments to prevention, diagnostics, and cure, which attracts a multitude of new entrants, and disrupts the industry status-quo. The introduction of value-based models and risk-based pricing has changed the way drugs or medical devices are being evaluated. This healthcare value chain transformation is driven by the need to reduce expenditures and to provide new, personalized treatments to patients, such as cell & gene therapies. However, “personalized medicine” requires a fundamentally different end-to-end capability towards a truly patient-centric analysis and response across the entire value chain. In addition to launching new treatments in the market, pharmaceutical organizations struggle to implement integrated supply chain capabilities. In a nutshell, technology is evolving faster than the life sciences industry can cope with.

With our rich experience and in-depth understanding of the life sciences industry segments, we deliver value to our clients with improved efficiency and adherence to regulations. We understand and analyze our clients’ challenges and requirements from a business and technology perspective and combine them to deliver successful projects.

Kindly shed some light on the SAP solutions that you offer, and how they benefit your clients.

SAP is at the core of our services. We focus on driving innovation—top-down or bottom-up—and delivering SAP projects for the entire life sciences value chain. We have extensive experience in developing and implementing global SAP templates, transformation programs, and solution optimization. Tenthpin also specializes in industry-specific topics like Clinical Trial Supply Management (CTSM), e-labels for clinical trials, Sales & Operations Planning, Integration of external supply chain partners, Serialization, Track &Trace, and the Internet of Things (IoT), specifically for medical devices.

We recently launched a pre-configured Tenthpin solution for cell & gene therapies (CGTSM) that covers the whole end-to-end, patient-centric value chain with SAP S/4 HANA. We also possess a team of scientists working on big data analytics with Hadoop technologies, and will soon be launching an ‘intelligent enterprise’—a digital data supply chain and product launch cockpit for the life sciences industry. Tenthpin also runs numerous coaching initiatives, and actively engages CIOs to decide on the right tool for innovation. In addition, we provide program & project management and quality assurance consulting; specializing in transformations from mergers, acquisitions, and divestments.

Who are your typical clients?

We cater our services to the traditional pharmaceutical, animal health, and medical device markets with an objective of delivering value in the market. Our team works collaboratively with biotech and clinical research organizations that are on the verge of a first product launch and ensures their products run flawlessly. We also serve chemical, agriculture and food companies that are closely intertwined with the highly regulated pharmaceutical processes.

Could you share a client success story?

Recently, we assisted a large pharmaceutical client to integrate with their newly acquired business. We worked on both the seller and buyer sides and delivered against the respective TSAs. The $5 billion deal posed a challenge on the buyer side due to the lack of manpower to handle large workloads, and we had to quickly integrate the new business. Our team of 35 people, highly experienced in business technology and integration, implemented a methodology tailored around M&A for the life sciences industry. We delivered a broad range of services, such as support of the transfer of market authorization numbers, optimization of distribution networks, and integration of external supply partners with the client’s existing business operations. We delivered the integration faster than expected, meeting our client’s budget and quality expectations. The client’s newly integrated business today runs without any issues. To add to this success, the client chose to collaborate with us on our follow-up projects, which speaks volumes about the quality and the value we deliver.

What does the future hold for the company?

We are working, amongst other solutions, for example on a digital/e-labeling solution for clinical products that combines SAP and non-SAP technologies to rejuvenate patient experience. Apart from increased patient safety and increased efficiency in clinical development, we expect significant lead-time reductions when it comes to the distribution of clinical products. We aim to be a market leader for life sciences specific custom solutions in the near future. We recently expanded from our current offices in the US, Germany, UK, and Portugal, into AsiaPac, namely Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore. As a neutral, independent advisor to CIOs, Tenthpin will continue delivering the best value to our clients, with a wide range of services and solutions. We are constantly on the lookout for partnership and co-innovation opportunities with large life sciences companies and small startups, and to provide them with best-of-breed solutions. Our goal is to build sustainability and continuity in the consulting business.