If you’ve ever sat in a cross-functional meeting, you’ll recognise the signs. Commercial wants bold claims. Regulatory insists on restraint. Medical clings to accuracy like a life raft. Market Access quietly sighs, repeating payer feedback that no one seems to want to hear.
Cross-functional misalignment isn’t just awkward. It’s expensive. Miscommunication, duplication, and delays can cost millions in lost revenue and credibility.
Every team sees the world through its own lens. Commercial prioritises speed and sales. Medical focuses on data integrity. Regulatory defends compliance. Access tries to inject payer reality into a story built for enthusiasm. By the time leadership notices that everyone’s heading in different directions, the product has already entered the market — often with conflicting messages and confused stakeholders.
I once saw a launch where the marketing team promised “transformative outcomes”, while the published data showed modest benefit. Market Access warned that payers would push back. They did — hard. The product was labelled as overhyped and overpriced before it even had a chance to prove itself.
The biggest casualty of misalignment isn’t just lost sales. It’s trust. Internally, teams stop sharing information. Externally, payers and clinicians sense the inconsistency and start to doubt the story. By then, no amount of glossy communication can fix it.
The solution lies in honesty and shared ownership. Build one version of the truth. Get all functions aligned around the same data, not their own interpretation of it. Make market access part of the story early so payer thinking shapes communication from the start. And most importantly, encourage disagreement. It’s far better to argue inside the building than to be dismantled by payers outside it.
Cross-functional success isn’t about harmony. It’s about disciplined collaboration — people working towards one purpose with full respect for each other’s expertise.
Key Takeaways
- Establish one shared evidence base before launch decisions are made.
- Encourage healthy conflict early; silence hides costly risks.
- Integrate payer insight into the core commercial narrative, not as an appendix.
- Treat internal alignment as a launch deliverable, not a nice-to-have.
- Remember: polite meetings rarely build great launches — honest ones do.
