partneringONE Case Study: DefiniGEN
Using partneringONE to supercharge your networking by finding the right fit
In this partneringONE case study, DefiniGEN’s Chief Business Officer, Heidi Kingdon Jones, provides a service provider’s perspective on using partnering systems to find potential clients. DefiniGen is enabling cures for liver disease through highly predictive in vitro modelling using IPSC-derived hepatocytes and hepatic stellate cells.
Many companies at partnering events who are seeking to out-license an asset often also have a pipeline of drug discovery projects in development which will need products and services, such as additional in vitro and in vivo data to strengthen their data package. This makes them good companies to engage with as a service provider, and partneringONE® helps business development professionals like Heidi to efficiently get in front of many such prospects over a few days.
Heidi counsels patience with the partnering process as, while she has signed many partnerships after partnership events, that’s never happened during an event. It can take anything from a few weeks to well over a year to sign a contract post the first partnering meeting. But right at the start, the partnering platform essentially supercharges your networking. It allows you to reach out to a select pool of potential customers that are relevant for your products and services. People are unlikely to meet unless there is some fit, albeit sometimes slight, and then it is up to you to make the magic happen.
Do your research
Heidi remarked that we have probably all been in the situation at events where we have ended up speaking to someone for some considerable time only to find they have absolutely no interest in what we are selling. The products and services being offered are simply not relevant. With the partnering platform this situation rarely happens because the fit can be established prior to the meeting.
For those new to using partnering systems, or looking for a refresh, Heidi has several insights & tips. Firstly, it’s not rocket science: The system is intuitive and there are plenty of tutorials to help get you started. Above all, use it to support your research. There is plenty of information on the partnering system regarding the organizations registered for an event, but it is not exhaustive. Also look at a prospective client’s website, LinkedIn profile, and financial information, and establish your fit with what they need. Take a sniper approach rather than a blunderbuss and make every invite count by tailoring it to each potential client. Don’t write blanket emails. It’s fine to have templates but you should have many of them for different scenarios and they should evolve as you become more experienced with what resonates and what doesn’t.
Timing is key
Heidi highlights that timing is important: don’t start too early (three weeks before the event is about right) and of course don’t leave it too late! Give yourself enough time too: block out a couple of hours a day to generate lists of companies to research and craft invitations. Remember you can still send invites during the actual event and reschedule when timing conflicts arise. That’s also why it is important to be on the partnering system during an event, to ensure key meetings aren’t dropped due to a last-minute scheduling conflict, for example as caused by travel problems.
Personalise your message
Heidi’s advice to the experienced is to keep the meeting invite text as brief as possible and give the recipient the incentive to find out more. You don’t need to meet at the booth. If your request is likely to be outside of your prospect’s goals for the event, ask to meet for coffee during a break. When there is a long list of delegates from a company send the invite to the people relevant to your offering rather than “Dear [Company] team”.
Once you’ve secured a meeting, she emphasized that a tailored and relevant pitch is incredibly important. However, there can be a temptation to whip out the laptop and deliver the pitch via PowerPoint before the client has even sat down in the partnering booth. As with any sales call, over 75% of the conversation should come from the client so really dig into what they are looking for and then tailor the pitch appropriately. Save PowerPoint for that key graph or table that sums it all up.
Follow up promptly
The meeting is not the end of the process. Heidi added, after your partnering meeting, follow up promptly, particularly where there are potential opportunities, but don’t neglect the follow ups where currently there are no opportunities as it may be just a matter of time and staying on their radar. Essentially, Heidi’s tip here is that you want to start moving the potential opportunities down the sales funnel whether that’s putting a Confidentiality Disclosure Agreement (CDA) or Material Transfer Agreement (MTA) in place and/or setting up a technical call that you need to start pushing for action.
Responding to requests benefits everyone
A plea from Heidi to users of partnering systems: it helps everyone if people respond to invites.
Be respectful when declining requests from other product & service providers. It does not take much to wish them a successful conference, and you never know when you might need them. Also, next time you go to an event with partneringONE you can easily see if a potential customer declined your invite previously and why. Hence, you will be less likely to bug them again.
More about DefiniGEN
DefiniGEN is a Cambridge University spin out with a game-changing platform that enables the large-scale generation of iPSC-derived hepatocytes (Opti-Heps). Opti-Heps successfully replicate all aspects of hepatocyte pathophysiology, allowing them to replace primary liver cells and hepatocellular carcinoma cell lines in many aspects of efficacy and toxicity testing. This breakthrough provides scientists with a reliable and consistent supply of highly functional hepatocytes for the first time and is crucial in a landscape where the predictability of drug responses and reducing the reliance on animal models are significant challenges. DefiniGEN’s cells can be both transfected and transduced and can come from a single or panel of donors. The company’s CRISPR/Cas9 technology can enable the study of previously inaccessible rare monogenic liver diseases and liver fibrosis.
For more information on DefiniGEN check out the website.
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