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Abstract 3D network visualization showing interconnected blue spheres of varying sizes representing healthcare system stakeholders and collaborative relationships

True alignment in three days — not years.

Sequential advisory boards and siloed teams create fragmentation and delays that doom Canadian drug commercialization. Mind Meeting workshops align your internal functions and external stakeholders simultaneously — so you launch faster, navigate reimbursement complexities seamlessly, and adapt rapidly as market conditions evolve.

60 +

Strategic workshops for life sciences and health system leaders.¹

1800 +

Leaders and stakeholders aligned across internal teams and external ecosystems.²

$ 350 B+

Asset value aligned across 60+ strategic workshops.³

100 +

Stakeholder types convened – from clinicians and payers to policy makers and CEOs.⁴

Trusted by industry leaders

"The workshop brought clarity on the complexity of the MRI system and generated real solutions to improve patient access."

Pat Forsythe

VP & General Manager, Eisai Canada

Eisai logo
“In a word: Wow. We could have done multiple stakeholder advisory boards, but they wouldn’t have been as good as this one workshop.”
Photo of Farah Jivraj

Farah Jivraj

Head, Market Access & Policy, Biogen Canada

Biogen logo

Fix internal fragmentation before it costs millions

You can use a Mind Meeting to

align cross-functional teams before critical decisions lock in

The Canadian Commercialization Challenge

Why fragmentation defeats drug launches

In Canada’s interconnected reimbursement maze, internal silos and external stakeholder misalignment create cascading failures that prevent most Health Canada-approved medicines from achieving broad public access. Success demands orchestrated multi-stakeholder alignment, not just regulatory approval.

The Problem: Canada’s Complex maze defeats most launches

  • Canadian pharmaceutical commercialization demands orchestrated navigation through multiple interconnected systems operating on fundamentally different logics.
  • Between 2019 and 2023, 89% of new medicines approved by Health Canada failed to secure provincial public drug plan listing.
  • Manufacturer delays account for 49% of the problem: companies wait an average of 368 days after Health Canada approval before even submitting for reimbursement review, with the blended average opportunity cost reaching C$44K per day (accelerating to C$137K per day for high-value specialty products with C$50M in peak sales).
  • Companies face an average 906-day journey from approval to first listing. The complexity compounds: CADTH review, pCPA negotiations, provincial formularies, hospital committees, specialist networks, and patient support systems all require different evidence and stakeholders.
  • These aren’t sequential hurdles but interconnected systems where missteps cascade throughout your entire launch strategy.

The Cause: Fragmentation creates fatal blind spots

  • Commercial failure stems from two fundamental fragmentations: internal (your teams operate in silos with conflicting mental models) and external (stakeholders operate through parallel channels that never converge)
  • Global headquarters deprioritizes Canada while Canadian affiliates lack resources and decision-making authority to prepare submissions
  • Medical Affairs, Market Access, Commercial, Regulatory, and Pricing teams optimize for their metrics while integrated strategy falls through gaps
  • Canadian HTA bodies recalculate manufacturer-submitted cost-effectiveness ratios upward by 2.3-fold on average, proving internal teams fundamentally disagree about their own product’s value
  • Phase III trials designed for FDA/EMA endpoints don’t meet Canadian HTA requirements, forcing costly evidence generation after approval when it’s too late
  • You engage clinicians, patient groups, payers, and policymakers separately, each hearing different messages and reaching different conclusions
  • Stakeholders influence each other through invisible networks that determine your fate
  • The deadly combination creates cacophony rather than symphony, resulting in 89% failure to reach patients

The Solution: Orchestrated multi-stakeholder alignment

  • Success requires bringing fragmented teams and disconnected stakeholders into structured dialogue before critical decisions lock in.
  • Surface hidden misalignments early. The 368-day internal delay and 2.3-fold ICER disconnect prove that sequential workflows and siloed advisory boards discover problems too late. Misalignments must surface when they can still be resolved—through collaborative problem-solving where everyone hears the same information and works on the same problem simultaneously.
  • Create shared mental models across both dimensions: Global headquarters and Canadian operations need shared understanding of market requirements. Medical Affairs, Market Access, Commercial, Regulatory, and Pricing must co-create strategy rather than hand off responsibilities. Then, clinicians, patient groups, payers, and policymakers must align their perspectives through integrated engagement, not parallel advisory boards that never converge.
  • Build execution-ready strategies that stick: When internal teams and external stakeholders co-create implementation pathways together, hidden assumptions surface in real-time dialogue. System barriers reveal themselves while solutions remain possible. The result is not a consulting report—it’s a strategy that everyone helped create and is committed to executing.
  • The outcome: Companies that achieve dual alignment—internal coherence and external orchestration—transform fragmented complexity into competitive advantage before misalignment costs millions.

THE COST OF FRAGMENTATION

The $50M fragmentation tax

Internal fragmentation and external misalignment create 368-day delays, 2.3x value disconnects, and $50M in lost revenue per specialty product.

368 days

Companies wait an average of 368 days after approval before submitting for reimbursement.

$ 137 K

Internal fragmentation costs companies $137K daily—$50M per specialty product in lost revenue due to delayed CADTH submissions.

2.3 X

CADTH discounts manufacturer value claims by 2.3-fold on average, proving fundamental misalignment in value proposition.

13 %

13% of drugs with positive HTA recommendations still fail at pCPA price negotiations.

THE INDUSTRY'S FAVORITE TOOL IS MAKING THINGS WORSE

Advisory boards aren’t the solution. They’re part of the problem.

Traditional engagement models perpetuate the very fragmentation that dooms commercialization strategies. Here’s why pharma’s go-to stakeholder engagement method can’t solve today’s alignment crisis.

THE PROBLEM: ADVISORY BOARDS FRAGMENT RATHER THAN ALIGN

  • Traditional advisory boards gather input sequentially from siloed stakeholder groups—payers, then clinicians, then patients—requiring 12-18+ months and producing disparate reports that manufacturers must somehow synthesize themselves.
  • Instead of creating alignment, this approach mirrors the very fragmentation that causes market access failures.
  • When contradictions emerge between what payers need, clinicians believe, and patients want, it’s already too late to reconcile them.

THE CAUSE: THE ADVISORY BOARD MODEL WAS DESIGNED FOR A DIFFERENT ERA

  • Two-hour sessions focused on reactive feedback cannot address today’s complex, interconnected commercialization challenges.
  • Sequential engagement means misalignments between stakeholder groups are discovered late in the process when they’re difficult and expensive to resolve.
  • The model consumes valuable months gathering opinions and producing reports, but never builds the genuine consensus required for successful execution.
  • It’s an archaeological approach in an era that demands architecture.

THE SOLUTION: REPLACE INPUT-GATHERING WITH INTEGRATED SOLUTION-BUILDING

  • Intensive alignment workshops bring all key internal functions and external stakeholders into collaborative problem-solving sessions that identify and resolve tensions in real-time.
  • This workshop-based approach achieves in 2-3 weeks what traditional advisory board sequences take over a year to accomplish, producing a single unified strategy that has been stress-tested and implicitly endorsed by all parties who must execute it.
  • You don’t get meeting minutes—you get an aligned organization ready to act.

THE EVIDENCE

10 weeks vs. 18 months: Why integration beats fragmentation

Traditional advisory boards consume over a year gathering siloed input that your team must somehow synthesize. Intensive alignment workshops deliver a unified, execution-ready strategy in 10 weeks by bringing all stakeholders together from the start.

Metric
Intensive Alignment Workshop Path
Traditional Advisory Board Path

Total timeline to actionable strategy

10 Weeks (from planning to final strategy)

12-18+ Months (for multiple, sequential boards)

Stakeholder integration

Simultaneous and Integrated (All stakeholders collaborate in the same forum)

Sequential and Siloed (Payers, Clinicians, Patients engaged separately)

Nature of input

Proactive Co-Creation (Jointly building and pressure-testing the strategy)

Reactive Feedback (Response to pre-set questions and data)

Primary output

A single, unified, execution-ready strategic plan

Multiple, disparate reports requiring internal synthesis

Risk of strategic misalignment

Low (Misalignments are identified and resolved in real-time through direct dialogue)

High (Contradictions between stakeholder groups are discovered late and are difficult to resolve)

Cost-effectiveness

Higher upfront intensity, but significantly lower total cost and dramatically reduced risk of market

High cost in both fees and internal resource time over a long period; high risk of costly strategic failure.

How a Mind Meeting works

From fragmentation to strategic alignment

Achieve strategic alignment through our proven three-step alignment process

1
Diagnostic & Scoping
We work with your leadership to precisely frame the challenge, identify which internal silos and external stakeholder groups harbor hidden misalignments, and assemble the right cross-functional team and ecosystem partners to surface them.
2
The Mind Meeting Workshop
Over three intensive days per workshop, we align your internal teams (medical affairs, market access, commercial, stakeholder engagement), key consultants (public affairs, payer experts), and external stakeholders (all relevant clinician types, patient advocates) to surface hidden misalignments, co-create solutions that navigate Canada’s complex provincial systems, and build consensus on actionable recommendations before critical decisions lock in.
3
Actionable Roadmap
Your aligned team leaves with an execution-ready strategy validated by implementation partners, clear accountability across functions and stakeholder groups, immediate next actions that prevent launch-killing blind spots, and the relationships to make it happen across Canada’s fragmented healthcare maze.
1
Diagnostic & Scoping
We work with your leadership to precisely frame the challenge, identify which internal silos and external stakeholder groups harbor hidden misalignments, and assemble the right cross-functional team and ecosystem partners to surface them.
2
The Mind Meeting Workshop
Over three intensive days per workshop, we orchestrate your internal teams (medical affairs, market access, commercial, stakeholder engagement), key consultants (public affairs, payer experts), and external stakeholders (all relevant clinician types, patient advocates) to surface hidden misalignments, co-create solutions that navigate Canada’s complex provincial systems, and build consensus on actionable recommendations before critical decisions lock in.
3
Actionable Roadmap
Your aligned team leaves with an execution-ready strategy validated by implementation partners, clear accountability across functions and stakeholder groups, immediate next actions that prevent launch-killing blind spots, and the relationships to make it happen across Canada’s fragmented healthcare maze.

CASE STUDY

Building healthcare system readiness before Leqembi arrives

When breakthrough therapies meet system barriers, traditional consulting approaches fail. Here’s how Eisai Canada created unprecedented stakeholder alignment to ensure patient access.

The Challenge

  • Eisai Canada’s breakthrough Alzheimer’s therapy lecanemab (Leqembi) requires regular MRI monitoring for patient safety.
  • However, Canada’s MRI infrastructure faced 130+ day wait times while the therapy demands 30-day monitoring intervals.
  • External stakeholders including radiologists, neurologists, MRI technologists, payers, and patient advocates operated in disconnected silos with no shared understanding of implementation requirements.
  • Without addressing these hidden misalignments, even a positive CADTH recommendation would fail to deliver patient access.
  • Traditional approaches proved inadequate for this systemic complexity. Siloed advisory boards—where radiologists, payers, and patient advocates meet separately—create an illusion of consensus while critical misalignments remain hidden.
  • Large symposium-style gatherings, meanwhile, suffer from hierarchy and group dynamics that silence diverse voices.
  • Eisai needed a methodology that fostered genuine collaboration without these limitations.

The Approach

  • The solution was Mind Meeting Group’s 3P Framework—combining diverse People, structured Process, and clear Positioning to enable 28 stakeholders to work as equals toward shared solutions.
  • Mind Meeting Group orchestrated 28 diverse stakeholders into structured three-day dialogue before Eisai’s reimbursement strategy crystallized.
  • Participants included seven Eisai internal functions, four payer/policy experts, four patient advocates, three radiologists, two neurologists, two MRI technologists, two MRI systems experts, one person living with dementia, one geriatrician, one family physician, one biomedical engineer, and external consultants representing health technology and government affairs perspectives.
  • Through systematic convergence and divergence cycles, teams identified 180 distinct system barriers, generated 125 potential solutions, and converged on 19 prioritized recommendations spanning infrastructure, clinical protocols, funding models, and stakeholder coordination.

The Results

  • The workshop achieved 100% stakeholder alignment on implementation recommendations—a critical strategic asset across traditionally siloed groups.
  • Eisai discovered existing capabilities previously unrecognized. As Eisai Marketing Director for Neurology Alex Flint, observed: “There are many more resources and pieces to this puzzle that already exist than we previously recognized!”
  • The process surfaced infrastructure gaps that would have emerged as fatal submission barriers and secured stakeholder commitments to system-level solutions.
  • Rather than discovering MRI access constraints during CADTH review when modification becomes impossible, Eisai entered their commercialization process with a strategy for system readiness validated by implementation partners. 
  • As General Manager Pat Forsythe noted: “After working with Mind Meeting Group, we’re in a better position to help decision makers understand the issues, work towards solutions, and bring real hope to patients.”

THE MIND MEETING DIFFERENCE

From fragmented views to system solutions

Traditional stakeholder engagement collects opinions in isolation. Mind Meeting workshops unite diverse healthcare professionals in structured dialogue that surfaces hidden insights and builds genuine consensus.

"I learned a lot about the complexity of the MRI system in Canada thanks to the multidisciplinary approach of the Mind Meeting workshop."
Photo of Dr. Sandra Black

Dr. Sandra Black

Neurologist & Senior Scientist, Sunnybrook

“Mind Meetings show the value of a multidisciplinary approach to solving complex healthcare issues. Specialists, patients, MRI technologists, and others co-created a strategy that we all support.”
Dr. Paula Alcaide-Leon

Dr. Paula Alcaide-Leon

Neuroradiologist, Toronto Western Hospital

“The diversity of knowledge and viewpoints within the workshop participants uncovered some high-potential, low-cost tools and actions to reduce MRI wait times.”
Photo of Katherine Kwan, MR Technologist, Simon Fraser University

Katherine Kwan

MRI Technologist, Simon Fraser University

Align the stakeholders who determine your success

You can use a Mind Meeting to

align stakeholders who influence access but never meet each other

Alignment vs. Fragmentation

Stop gathering input. Start building alignment.

A single Mind Meeting delivers what months of fragmented stakeholder advisory boards cannot: an aligned organization ready to execute in Canada’s complex healthcare system.

Feature
Mind Meeting
Advisory Boards

Strategic Approach

Integrated cross-functional workshop methodology

Workshop-based co-creation model

Sequential single-stakeholder input session

System Alignment

Internal alignment: Breaks down silos, builds shared mental models across functions

External: Convenes full ecosystem (payers, KOLs, patients) in collaborative problem-solving

Integration: Aligns interaction between your teams and stakeholders to co-create implementation pathways

Surfacing Hidden Misalignments

Reveals fatal blind spots before they cascade through your launch

Surfaces hidden assumptions before they become evidence gaps

Exposes conflicting mental models across functions

Validates stakeholder input against implementation reality

Limited

Team Transformation

Cross-functional integration built into process

Creates organizational ownership and shared commitment

Transforms fragmented perspectives into unified strategy

Speed & Depth

Intensive multi-day workshop (15+ total hours)

Brief input sessions (2 hours to 1 day)

Alignment achieved in weeks, not months

Outcomes

Aligned leadership team ready to execute

Execution-ready action plan with stakeholder validation

System-level clarity on complex, interconnected challenges

Fragmented stakeholder feedback reports

THE MIND MEETING DIFFERENCE

Expert facilitation that unites diverse stakeholders

Our proven methodology works seamlessly online or in-person, bringing together academics, clinicians, patient advocates, and industry experts from across Canada to co-create solutions they’re committed to implementing.

“Best online workshop ever. Kudos to the Mind Meeting Group team for the excellent use of technology and facilitating techniques.”
Photo of Dr. Simon Duchesne

Dr. Simon Duchesne

Professor, Radiology, Laval University

“The best facilitation I've ever experienced. The workshop’s multi-sectoral approach created new hope for people living with dementia.”
Photo of Laura Tamblyn Watts

Laura Tamblyn Watts

President & CEO, CanAge

TRUSTED BY LIFE SCIENCES LEADERS

The expertise behind the alignment

Our team brings deep experience aligning internal teams and external stakeholders across the full spectrum of commercialization challenges—from engineering market access strategies and orchestrating multi-stakeholder ecosystems to integrating cross-functional teams and facilitating breakthroughs that deliver actionable roadmaps.

Photo of Mind Meeting Group Founder and Lead Facilitator Mark McCarvill
Mark McCarvill
Founder & Lead Facilitator
Photo of Mind Meeting Group Facilitator Karen Elkin
Karen Elkin
Facilitator
Photo of Mind Meeting Group Facilitator Lynn Fergusson
Lynn Fergusson
Facilitator
Photo of Mind Meeting Group Facilitator Michelle Nelson
Michelle Nelson
Facilitator
Photo of Mind Meeting Group Facilitator Judy Wolf
Judy Wolf
Facilitator

READY TO BUILD ALIGNMENT?

Let's discuss your challenge

Tell us about your commercialization challenge and we’ll schedule a confidential conversation to explore how a Mind Meeting workshop can help.

Sources and research citations

  1. Strategic alignment workshops facilitated by Mind Meeting Group founder Mark McCarvill include: Pfizer Canada (15+ projects over 11 years, across multiple therapeutic areas and strategic challenges, including work that explicitly addressed US-Canada alignment), Novartis (8+ projects across US and Canada spanning rare diseases, oncology, and global-local alignment), Cardinal Health (5 projects over 6 years, including CEO-level sponsorship for highest-stakes strategic decisions), AstraZeneca (4 projects addressing market access and competitive positioning challenges), Biogen Canada, Eisai Canada, Saskatchewan Ministry of Health (4 major provincial government workshops including cross-ministerial health planning, mental health & addictions strategy, and health human resources planning), Alberta Health & Wellness (provincial influenza immunization program and government health strategy), AFHTO (Association of Family Health Teams of Ontario primary care system innovation), among others including Bristol-Myers Squibb, Celgene, Genentech/Roche, GlaxoSmithKline, Shire, and Lee Health. This experience spans market access strategy, cross-functional team alignment, multi-stakeholder collaboration, product launches, and healthcare system transformation across Canada, the United States, and Europe.
  2. Over 1800 leaders and stakeholders have been aligned across internal teams and external ecosystems through workshops facilitated by Mind Meeting Group founder Mark McCarvill, calculated as approximately 30 participants per workshop across 60+ strategic workshops.
  3. The $350B+ in asset value represents the aggregate peak sales potential and recent annual revenues of pharmaceutical brands whose strategic challenges have been addressed through workshops facilitated by Mind Meeting Group founder Mark McCarvill. This total estimated portfolio value exceeds $350 billion based on major blockbuster brands including: Nivolumab/Opdivo (BMS, $10B annual sales in 2023, forecast $14B by 2028), Gleevec (Novartis, peak sales ~$4.7B pre-generics), Tasigna (Novartis, $1.671B in 2023), Repatha (Amgen, $1.635B in 2023, forecast peak $2.6B), Oral Semaglutide/Rybelsus (Novo Nordisk, $2.72B in 2023, forecast peak $6.2B), Dupixent (Sanofi/Regeneron, $11.59B in 2023), among numerous other high-value pharmaceutical assets across oncology, rare diseases, cardiovascular, diabetes, and other therapeutic areas. The calculation reflects the substantial commercial scale of drug portfolios that have been the subject of strategic facilitation throughout Mark McCarvill’s career.
  4. More than 100 distinct stakeholder types have been convened across Mind Meeting Group’s workshop portfolio. This comprehensive stakeholder experience spans: 15+ different payer types including Canadian provincial payer representatives (Alberta, Ontario, BC, Quebec), provincial formulary decision-makers, US commercial payers, PBMs (Pharmacy Benefit Managers), and managed care organizations; government and regulatory officials including Health Canada officials (former Associate Deputy Ministers), former provincial ADMs (Assistant Deputy Ministers from Alberta Health and other provinces), CADTH experts (health technology assessment), and pCPA negotiators; 50+ clinician types across 15+ medical specialties (neurologists, oncologists, cardiologists, geriatricians, radiologists, family physicians) and allied health professionals (nurses, pharmacists, medical imaging technologists); 20+ patient advocacy organizations including national organizations and provincial chapters; 25+ health system leadership types (hospital CEOs and CAOs, regional health authority executives, primary care network leadership); 10+ universities and research institutions; government representatives at all levels including federal officials, provincial ministry leadership, and notably 5 Deputy Ministers simultaneously in Saskatchewan cross-ministerial health planning; healthcare technology and innovation leaders; professional associations across medical, nursing, and pharmacy sectors; and national industry association boards including the facilitation of 20+ competing pharmaceutical company CEOs for Innovative Medicines Canada’s strategic direction and government engagement strategy.