Life science sales cycles run six to eighteen months, which means by the time your revenue numbers tell you something is wrong, it has been wrong for a year. Measuring the wrong things is how BD teams stay busy and unproductive.
Why activity metrics lie here
Calls made, emails sent, meetings booked. These feel like productivity and they are what most teams track, because they are easy to count.
But in a market where the buyer researches quietly for months, high activity against the wrong accounts at the wrong time produces exactly nothing, indefinitely, while looking excellent on a dashboard. A rep who sends two hundred untriggered emails is not more productive than one who sends fifteen well-timed ones. They are less productive, and busier.
The metrics that actually predict revenue
- Triggered outreach rate. What proportion of your outreach is tied to an actual event at the target company? If it is low, your pipeline is being built on hope.
- Time from trigger to contact. How long between a company raising, announcing, or appointing, and your rep reaching out? This is the single most diagnostic number in a life science BD team, and almost nobody measures it. If it is measured in months, you are systematically late.
- Reply rate on triggered versus untriggered outreach. Measure them separately. The gap will be embarrassing and instructive.
- Shortlist appearance rate. How often are you invited to RFPs you did not know were coming? This measures whether you are visible during the research phase.
- Inbound qualified leads. The clearest evidence that your visibility work is functioning.
The question that reframes everything
Ask your BD team a simple question: for the last five deals we lost, when did we first make contact relative to when the buyer started looking?
Most teams cannot answer, which is itself the answer. And when they can, the number is almost always worse than anyone expected, because the buyer started looking long before anyone knew.
Fix the input, not the effort
If your reps are late and untriggered, the problem is not motivation, discipline, or messaging. They cannot act on information they do not have. Give them the trigger and the timing, and the metrics move on their own.
Know who to call
Your reps are not underperforming. They are under-informed, and no dashboard will fix that.
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Frequently asked questions
What should biotech BD teams measure?
Triggered outreach rate (what proportion of outreach is tied to an actual event), time from trigger to contact (the most diagnostic and least measured number), reply rates on triggered versus untriggered outreach measured separately, shortlist appearance rate, and inbound qualified leads. Activity metrics like calls and emails sent mislead badly.
Why do activity metrics mislead in life sciences?
Because sales cycles run six to eighteen months and buyers research quietly for months before contact. High activity against the wrong accounts at the wrong time produces nothing while looking excellent on a dashboard. A rep sending two hundred untriggered emails is less productive, and busier, than one sending fifteen well-timed ones.
How do I know if my BD team is too late?
Ask when you first made contact on your last five lost deals, relative to when the buyer began looking. Most teams cannot answer, which is itself the answer, and when they can the number is usually far worse than expected, because buyers start researching long before vendors know anything is happening.
