At a Glance
The Challenge:
- Gathering competitive intelligence (CI) was complex and time-consuming process, often involving fragmented efforts
- Procured solutions often provided large volumes of data but still required significant manual work to triangulate findings and generate meaningful takeaways
- Varying accuracy across sources and the need to cross-check and vet derived intelligence strained company resources and delayed decision-making
The Solution:
- The team achieved significant efficiencies, accelerating access to insights with earning summaries by 120x, and formulating conclusions around market trends faster with AlphaSense Generative Search
- Having color across multiple perspectives — broker research, expert perspectives, and company documents — provided invaluable context for a more comprehensive understanding
- Created vast efficiencies across CI discovery with a “one-stop-shop” that is as robust as it is versatile and well-trusted
The Company
Galápagos NV is a leading biotechnology company with operations in Europe and the U.S. that focuses on transforming patient outcomes through innovative science and groundbreaking advancements. The company prioritizes addressing high unmet medical needs by leveraging cutting-edge science, advanced technology, and collaborative approaches to develop a robust pipeline of best-in-class small molecules and cell therapies in oncology and immunology. With comprehensive capabilities spanning research to patient care, including a decentralized cell therapy manufacturing platform, and the financial strength to invest strategically, Galápagos is committed to challenging the status quo to deliver impactful results for patients, employees, and shareholders.
The Challenge: Advancing R&D Pipeline in Oncology and Immunology
Prior to partnering with AlphaSense, the CI process was a “huge undertaking,” according to Camille Hoffman, Head of Customer Insights and Engagement Operations, and Andrew Frost, Director of Competitive Intelligence, at Galápagos. The process was “very ad-hoc,” requiring multiple pipeline database subscriptions, syndicated analytics, and tracking trials manually. Even with subscriptions offering access to broker research, the reports would often be “dumped” onto the platform with limited usability and summarization. Furthermore, the team found themselves double- and cross-checking procured intelligence, straining internal resources and often delaying key decision-making.
Following the successful sale of its Jyseleca® (filgotinib) phase 3 clinical business to Alfasigma S.p.A. in early 2024 — transferring over 400 personnel for a €50 million upfront payment and future royalties — Galápagos has faced the challenge of rebuilding its R&D portfolio. With a renewed focus on innovation, the company prioritized its oncology (CAR-T) and immunology franchises to address high unmet patient needs and improve quality of life, marking a pivotal step in its transformation into a leading biotech firm.
Accelerating Access to Insights with Confidence
As a former equity analyst, Frost sees the inherent value in “color” from multiple expert sources throughout his research. Having a well-rounded view into expert opinions on critical market trends and marketplace drugs is necessary to reduce time-to-insights and instill trust in the accuracy of the surfaced information.
With AlphaSense, the Galápagos team gets the context and color they need to understand the quantitative data central to their research process. When considering trial outcomes, for example, the team can quickly distill the ballpark perspective from six or seven analyst opinions, which saves a tremendous amount of time and provides a “sense check” they can then leverage to pursue indications with confidence. The breadth of Wall Street Insights® broker coverage is also a key distinguisher for the Galápagos team, particularly for coverage of micro-cap biotech companies.
“The breadth of broker coverage is tremendous, and there isn’t really anyone else that comes close.”
– Andrew Frost, Director of Competitive intelligence
The team relies on AI-generated summaries for quarterly company transcripts on the platform to accelerate their insights 120x. This previously involved listening to hour-long earnings calls for companies they follow versus reading a 30-second summary with key findings annotated.
The Generative Search feature is beginning to see robust uptake within in the team as the offering continues to evolve, particularly when trying to understand macro views on questions such as “what do analysts think of drug X,” creating efficiencies and saving time from needing to go through broker reports one by one to understand the broad market sentiment.
“With AlphaSense, it’s data we can trust. If someone gave us a load of reports from AlphaSense, we know it 100% can be trusted.” – Camille Hoffman, Head of Customer Insights and Engagement Operations
Beyond its use for advancing pipeline and competitive intelligence, AlphaSense “has a massive reach internally” and is leveraged cross-functionally by the firm’s finance, business development, and clinical teams. With “unwavering confidence,” the teams use the platform to gain insights into the market’s temperature and consider it valuable throughout the research process.
Thinking to the Future
Heading into this year, the Galápagos team is eager to explore partnerships, research collaborations, licensing and acquisitions and is focused on ensuring it has a comprehensive and holistic view on targets of interest. The AlphaSense platform will play a crucial role in providing the core competitive intelligence necessary to continue moving these pursuits forward, with the trusted intelligence and breadth of information they have grown to expect. The team is also excited about the expansion of generative AI tools such as Generative Search to continue increasing efficiencies in their workflow.
“AlphaSense is a core competitive intelligence (CI) product we would really struggle to do without. It has a massive reach internally – across finance, business development, and clinical. It really helps everyone.”
– Andrew Frost
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