Yuta Takahashi, CEO, Seven To One

The healthcare sector is witnessing rapid transformation driven by increased penetration of health insurance, the participation of large corporates, and high government focus resulting in significant capacity expansion, improved infrastructure, and service quality. Thus to stay competitive in the pharmaceutical field, pharmaceutical companies need to have access to legal, product and clinical development, business strategy, and human resources experts. Many startups can’t employ professionals specializing in all these areas, and it also can be a challenge for established corporations, especially in the case of hyper-specific issues. While working in a consulting firm, Yuta Takahashi discerned that although pharmaceutical sponsors outsource a large part of their business to CRO/CMO/CSO’s, they still have various and enormous works and issues internally. After analyzing, he figured out three key issues. First, the company still needs to spend a certain amount of time to oversee, manage, and review the vendors’ operation. Second, many internal works cannot be outsourced to a third-party vendor because of the importance and confidentiality such as development strategies, core internal standards, vendor selection, or management guidelines. And third, continuing the need for internal process change and improvement due to globalization, acquisition, and merger.This is when Takahashi realized that the pharmaceutical sponsorsneed a partner who can support their internal work, with deep industry experience and consulting/technology capability to drive their business to success.As a result, he founded, Seven to One, a pioneering business consulting company to fill this gap.

Delivering a Wide Spectrum of Business Consulting Services

Seven to One’s current portfolio of services and solutions covers both Business Process Support and Business Consulting in the pharmaceutical industry. With a wide range of services, the company supports all business domains in the pharmaceutical industry, where it has demonstrated experience in biostatics, data management, and IT solutions. Specifically, the company specializes in statistical analysis and data management pharmaceutical R&D, as well as IT system planning and implementation.

Beyond this, the prominent company offers various business consulting services.

Business process standardization and improvement: Standardizing and streamlining the business process will lead to cost reduction, high-quality outcomes, and fast achievement of drug development. Eventually, these effects lead to the customers’ success in delivering innovative products faster and with lower pricing to the patients. The company also applies these methods to post-marketing activities and pharmacovigilance area, which leads to the improvement of product quality and patient safety even after the market of the drug.

Technology Implementation: Changing the process from traditional human dependent way to a systemized automated way is not only for cost reduction and quality improvement. It also enables the linkage of various data sources and leads to the generation of new values through the utilization of those data. It is not a far future when the winner is decided by the availability of technology and digitalization. The company supports all customers to be the winner in this game.

Sponsor and Vendor Engagement: The outsourcing model started in this industry for 30 years, where the growth of the CRO’s market has grown tremendously. Seven to One’s services support to remove the gap and challenges in transitioning business between the sponsors and CROs. 

Takahashi says, “While other CROs are trying to increase the capability and experience to handle large projects and to be a preferred vendor for mega-pharma sponsors, we are here to support all types of pharma companies including bio-ventures, generic drug and biosimilar producers, OTC drug producers and local pharma companies with our tailored and just the need services.” 

Seven to One also support overseas solution providers who want to provide their service to Japan pharma companies. It has a good partnership program that enablesbusinesses to expand their footprint within Japan.

Committed to Client’s Success

The tailored and flexible solutions which successfully meet the customers’ needs are the key drivers for the company’s success in maintaining loyal customers. Seven to One firmly believes that the lack of understanding of the customer’s ‘real need’ and the persistence with their unique solution makes it difficult for vendors to provide the best-fit solution. “We always carefully listen to the customer’s vision and need to understand what they want. Though we propose a better solution, but never offer a service based on our demand,” affirms Takahashi.

Accepting all kinds of customer requirements with high flexibility and best in class performance is Seven to One’s motto. The company measures the achievement of this point by the customer repeat rate which is currently 100%. It aims to become a trusted and reliable partner for every customer. 

Furthermore, it considers the high satisfaction of the employees as the most important driver to deliver the best services. It believes that valuing employees will eventually lead to valuable services and the success of the clients. As a result, the company provides a comfortable working environment where employees can enhance their skills and develop their careers. 

Gearing Up for an Optimistic Future

In the coming years, the company aims to continue delivering customer centric-services while focusing on establishing the leading position in ‘Data utilization and analysis’ and ‘Process improvement’ services. 

“To achieve this goal, we will continue to produce accomplished knowledge, improve our services, and expand the engagement with new customers,” asserts Takahashi.

The company is also heading towards becoming one of the most talented and edgy service providers in the industry.