Beyond Specialty: What Biopharma Leaders Learned Transitioning into Rare Disease - White Paper

On March 25, 2025, bioCatalyst hosted a roundtable discussion — part of an ongoing platform designed to foster open, peer-to-peer dialogue around the most pressing leadership and strategic challenges in biopharma.

This session asked a fundamental question: Can specialty and rare disease businesses be managed under one unified strategy, or do they require fundamentally different approaches?

Participants brought complementary perspectives across corporate development, commercial leadership, HR, and organizational design — offering a multidimensional view of the trade-offs companies face as they grow across both models.

This white paper explores how biopharma leaders navigate organizational structure, redefine hiring priorities, and adapt clinical and commercial models when the two worlds collide. From compensation tension to diagnostic gaps, from payer resistance to patient advocacy — it surfaces the nuanced realities behind successful transitions into rare.

Designed for biopharma leaders, investors, and strategic partners, it offers real-world insight into what it takes to scale in rare disease — when playbooks don’t always apply and creativity becomes a strategic asset.