First & Best in Class Oncology Innovation

Balancing technical and commercial risk early in oncology

The panel’s premise was simple: “first-in-class” and “best-in-class” strategies don’t fail primarily because teams lack ambition. They fail because the early plan doesn’t hold up once reality arrives—data, competition, financing constraints, and evolving stakeholder expectations. That’s why this session kept returning to the same operating requirement: bring commercial thinking earlier, not as “packaging,” but as a discipline that shapes what you build, what you test, and what you’re willing to stop. Selectivity is structural, and prioritization is now a defining capability rather than a downstream exercise.