Stop rushing, start knowing. Remember to look down before you run.
The Job
In consulting, people love momentum. New project? Great. Let’s get moving. While it’s lovely for teams and stakeholders to feel enthused, rushing to execution without understanding the ground beneath your feet isn’t momentum, it’s reckless optimism disguised as progress..
Before you plot the destination, you need a clear picture of where you’re standing. That’s true for any change, but in pharma M&A the information burden is on another level entirely. The more you uncover, the safer you are, because every extra scrap of detail is one less ambush in the form of cost blow-outs, delays, regulatory problems or the whole delightful package at once.
Over the years I’ve built and rebuilt my own due-diligence framework. Every time something hasn’t gone to plan on a deal, one of the root causes is nearly always we didn’t have the facts early enough.
Here’s my run-down of the areas you need to lock down.
1. Product Landscape
You are not buying a brand, you’re buying its operational footprint - if you don’t understand these, you don’t understand the product.
2. Manufacturing
Lots of critical hidden dependencies lurk here - upstream affects downstream!
3. Regulatory Affairs
It's the licence to operate your business -ignore at your peril!
4. Markets
Market realities make or break the viability of the deal - assumptions about “stable markets” have sunk more than one transaction.
5. Quality Assurance
The one area where surprises are never pleasant - QA gaps always show up, usually at the worst possible time.
6. Pharmacovigilance
Small function - huge consequences.
7. Legal
Where your deal structure has to stand up to reality - if the legal framework isn’t crisp, your handover won’t be either.
8. Finance
The commercial engine behind the whole transaction - execution becomes impossible when financials are unclear or inconsistent.
If you would like a more detailed copy of my due diligence framework, drop me a DM.
Why all this matters
In my experience, the success of an acquisition or divestiture is determined long before the handover date. It is set here—during the quiet, unglamorous, essential work of due diligence.
Before you push into delivery mode, pause. Interrogate the facts. Challenge assumptions. Illuminate the blind spots.
It will save you months of rework and millions in avoidable cost.
Now, I’m under no illusion that any of this is easy. In the early stages of a deal you rarely have the luxury of asking every question you’d like. The information load is colossal, and you’ll never get your hands on everything on the list. But you should still dig up and curate as much as humanly possible. The more you gather, the more you can plan around what you know, what you can influence, and what you can at least shape.
Equally important: the gaps you can’t fill give you visibility of your blind spots. That lets you put in place sensible working assumptions—markers you can revisit once more data becomes available. Clearing the knowns early buys you the capacity to deal with the unknowns later, when they inevitably come knocking.
Your Turn
Have I missed anything?
And from this very large universe of due-diligence data, what do you think are the real priorities—the things that make or break a deal?
I’d be genuinely interested in the perspectives of others who’ve lived through these transactions.
The Head
Learning about learning - I’ve just finished my first course with University of Cambridge Professional and Continuing Education. I enjoyed returning to learning so much I immediately started the second one! 📒
Aside from the course content itself (which is fascinating!) what’s been particularly interesting but the insights about myself ie how I learn.
During my first course, I noticed there were many chances to get more out of the experience by engaging more deeply in discussions, reflecting on the materials between sessions, and connecting with others to exchange ideas.
So, this time, I’m adopting a different strategy: slowing down, being more deliberate and using what I now understand about how I learn best. It’s incredible how much more meaningful the experience becomes when you consciously “learn from learning”.
I’m really enjoying being back in this mindset!
I’ve started the next course: a recurring theme when we dive into things is that the answer to all the questions tends to be “Historically we discovered that the body is a bit like a biomechanical machine. When we started studying the brain we assumed the parallel continued.
That the brain is made of parts all with specific uses contributing to a whole. The recurring theme I keep coming across is: "It's more complicated than we thought, it's a combination of all the individual things we thought!”. My studies continue!
The Heart
The other day I didn’t have access to my usual devices, so I picked up a pen and started sketching thoughts on paper. I’d forgotten how satisfying that can be. There’s something deeply pleasing about a tidy set of handwritten notes—admittedly the final version, not the first attempt.
But something else happened: ideas started surfacing organically. One sparked the next, and then another. That rarely happens to me when I’m typing. The constraints of a screen seem to tidy my thoughts too early; handwriting lets them wander long enough to become interesting.
One of those scribbles turned into the article above.
That doesn’t mean technology isn’t essential. I still leaned heavily on my laptop, my phone, my apps, AI, and of course my marketing guru Lou Laird to help shape and polish the final piece. But the initial spark—the part that actually mattered—came from physically writing things down.
I’m curious; do you find that writing by hand activates a different part of you?
Stay in touch
Let's keep the conversation going, connect with me on here or head to my website for more info on how I can support you and your senior team.
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