Pharma Research Insights & Use Cases: The Journey to Ekarnia

After two years of deep research and stakeholder engagement, and with the launch of Ekarnia - the platform redefining how pharmaceutical companies discover and evaluate service providers—it’s the perfect time to reflect on what we’ve learned.

What We Heard from Pharma

Our research has spanned conversations with a wide range of pharma professionals, including:

• Procurement leads at global, regional, and category levels

• Functional leaders in medical, marketing, and market access

Across the board, these conversations revealed shared frustrations around the data available on external agency suppliers.

1. Discovery Challenges

Not every team is actively searching for new agencies, particularly in established areas like brand communications or medical affairs. Yet many still feel the need to stay informed—aware that long-term agency relationships can lead to blind spots. New players in the market bring fresh capabilities, but they often remain invisible.

As procurement becomes more decentralized, the search becomes more nuanced. Teams are now asking questions like:

“Is there a PR agency that specializes in rare disease in Italy?” or “Who’s leading in market access in South America?”

2. Supplier Intelligence Gaps

While most pharma companies conduct quarterly business reviews with key service providers, very few have robust, comparable data to evaluate supplier performance objectively. There’s a lack of clear, accessible metrics to assess which agencies excel in specific areas.

So, how do they decide?

The Current State: Word of Mouth Reigns

Despite growing complexities, most supplier decisions still stem from internal referrals. When someone needs a "good agency," they ask around. But this informal method is inherently flawed—heavily influenced by relationships, timing, budgets, and team dynamics.

One client insightfully described Ekarnia’s value as:

“Formalising word of mouth.”

We couldn’t have said it better.

The Core Problem Statements in Pharma

From our interviews and workshops, three recurring issues emerged:

1. “I don’t have a reliable way to discover new suppliers.”

2. “There’s no clear view of which suppliers are actually doing good work.”

3. “The data I do have is scattered, unclear, or inconsistent.”

Enter Ekarnia

Keecia Scott, Procurement Advisor and former Global Procurement leader at Gilead, put it best:

“Ekarnia is the only platform I’ve seen that truly supports pharma in finding the right supplier for the right project at the right time. It also helps these service providers present themselves in the best light to clients.”

Ekarnia is the world’s first global platform built specifically to streamline service provider discovery and intelligence in the pharmaceutical industry.

Built by industry insiders, the platform features the largest global database of commercialisation-focused agency suppliers - spanning 45 core disciplines.

With Ekarnia, pharma teams can:

• Discover new service providers around the world with precision

• Manage existing supplier relationships using structured, centralized data

• Save time and resources by replacing guesswork with insight

Want to see how Ekarnia could work for your team?

Let’s talk.