Winston Francois builds co-marketing programs with CROs, distributors, and larger pharma partners that clear MLR and OPDP review without stalling for months. We embed as your fractional partner marketing team, not an agency that hands you a deck and disappears.
The Problem
The Partnership Agreement Closed Faster Than the Marketing Plan
Business development signs a co-marketing clause with a CRO, a distributor, or a larger pharma partner in a matter of weeks, and then marketing finds out about it after the ink is dry with no brief, no asset plan, and no shared understanding of what either side is allowed to say publicly. Six months later the partnership is still being announced with a single joint press release because nobody built the actual program behind it.
MLR Review Was Built for Your Content, Not Content Co-Owned by a Partner
Your Medical Legal Regulatory process has a rhythm for internal assets: draft, route, revise, approve. Co-branded content breaks that rhythm because now two legal teams, two medical reviewers, and sometimes two compliance functions all have to sign off before anything ships, and nobody agreed in advance on whose review cycle takes precedence.
Distributor and Device Networks Get Generic Materials That Do Not Sell
Medical device distributors and specialty pharmacy networks are handed the same core deck used for direct sales, with none of the positioning, objection handling, or formulary context their reps actually need in the field. Distributor sales teams do not know your product the way your own team does, and a generic leave-behind does not close that gap.
Co-Branded Promotional Claims Carry FDA and OPDP Exposure Neither Party Wants to Own
Any co-branded promotional material that makes an efficacy, safety, or comparative claim falls under FDA Office of Prescription Drug Promotion scrutiny, and a partner's marketing team is not always trained to write inside those constraints. When your name sits next to a partner's on a piece of promotional material, a compliance misstep is your exposure too, not just theirs.
KOL and Institutional Relationships Are Owned by Three Departments at Once
Medical affairs has the KOL relationship from a scientific standpoint, business development has it from a partnership standpoint, and marketing has it from an amplification standpoint, and none of the three groups coordinates before reaching out. A key opinion leader gets three separate asks about the same conference panel or the same co-authored piece, and the partner on the other side of the relationship notices the disorganization before your own team does.
Joint Go-to-Market With a Larger Pharma Partner Runs on Their Timeline, Not Yours
When a Series B or Series C biotech partners with a larger pharma company for co-promotion or licensing distribution, the larger partner's marketing org typically has more headcount, more legal layers, and a much slower cadence than a smaller team is used to running at. Without a marketing lead who can operate inside both cadences at once, the smaller company either gets steamrolled into the partner's slower schedule or burns goodwill pushing for a pace the partner's legal team will not match.
How We Help
We start by mapping every active and pending partnership – CRO co-marketing clauses, distributor agreements, licensing deals, KOL and institutional relationships, and any joint go-to-market commitments with a larger pharma partner – against what marketing actually knows about each one.
From there we build a partner marketing plan scoped to each relationship type, because a CRO co-marketing program, a distributor enablement kit, and a joint launch with a larger pharma partner are three different disciplines that do not share a template.
We then build the review workflow itself, not just the content. That means sitting down with your legal, medical, and compliance stakeholders and your partner's counterparts to agree on a single review path with defined turnaround times, instead of two separate review cultures colliding on every asset.
For distributor and device networks, we build sales enablement materials specific to what a distributor rep actually needs in the field – positioning against what they are already selling, objection handling for formulary and reimbursement questions, and a leave-behind that reads differently than the direct-sales deck because the buyer conversation is different.
On KOL and institutional relationships, we build a single coordination point across medical affairs, business development, and marketing so a KOL gets one aligned outreach instead of three uncoordinated ones.
When the partner is a larger pharma company running co-promotion or licensing distribution, we operate as the marketing counterpart who can hold both cadences at once – moving at your speed on the pieces you control, and translating your partner's slower legal and MLR cycle into a realistic joint timeline instead of a source of constant friction.
We work fractional and embedded. The person who negotiated the joint review workflow with your partner's legal team is the same person managing the campaign when a compliance question comes up three weeks before the launch date.
What we deliver
- Partnership marketing audit mapping every co-marketing, distributor, and licensing obligation to an owner
- Joint MLR and OPDP review workflow with defined turnaround times across both organizations
- Distributor and device-network sales enablement kit built for the field conversation, not a copy of the direct-sales deck
- KOL and institutional coordination calendar shared across medical affairs, business development, and marketing
- Co-branded asset library scoped to what each partnership agreement actually permits
- Joint go-to-market plan and realistic timeline for co-promotion or licensing launches with larger pharma partners
- Documented approval matrix so future partner content does not restart the negotiation from zero
The bottleneck in most biotech partner marketing programs is not the content – it is that nobody built a review workflow for content two organizations own at once, so every asset renegotiates the same unresolved question from scratch.
Our Methodology
We run in 90-day sprints because that is enough time to fix the structural problem, not just ship one campaign around it. Days 1-15 are the partnership and process audit: every active co-marketing clause, distributor agreement, and KOL relationship mapped against who currently owns it and what has actually shipped. Days 16-45 are workflow and asset build: the joint review path, the distributor enablement kit, the KOL coordination calendar, and the first wave of co-branded assets built against that new workflow. Days 46-75 run the workflow live against a real partner deadline, which is the only way to know if a joint review process actually holds up under pressure. Days 76-90 are documentation and handoff, so the approval matrix and review cadence survive after we step back, instead of resetting the next time a new partnership gets signed.
This is different from a traditional agency engagement in one specific way: we do not stop at a recommended process. We sit in the room with your partner's legal and medical reviewers, negotiate the actual turnaround commitments, and stay embedded through the first joint launch that tests whether the new workflow holds. If a partner's MLR team pushes back on a claim mid-review, they are talking to the person who built the asset, not an account manager relaying a question back to us.
How We Work
The first 30 days are diagnostic. We sit with your business development, medical affairs, legal, and marketing teams to map every partnership with a marketing obligation attached, and we come back with a prioritized plan – which relationships have the most stalled revenue behind them, not a generic partner marketing playbook.
Days 31-60 are workflow build and first assets.
By day 90 you have a working partner marketing function with a track record – at least one joint asset that cleared review on a defined timeline instead of an open-ended one.
If your biotech or pharma company has partner marketing stuck behind unowned review cycles, we should talk.
- Faster MLR and OPDP clearance on co-branded and joint promotional assets
- Distributor and device-network sales materials that reflect actual field conversations
- One coordinated KOL and institutional outreach calendar instead of three competing ones
- Realistic joint go-to-market timelines with larger pharma partners
- A documented approval matrix that survives beyond the current partnership
- Partnership agreements with an actual marketing owner instead of an unassigned clause
If your biotech & pharma company needs partner & channel marketing leadership, we should talk.
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Frequently asked questions
How do you speed up MLR review for co-branded content with a CRO or pharma partner?
We do not try to shortcut MLR – we fix the fact that most co-branded content has no agreed review path across two organizations' legal and medical teams. We build a single joint workflow with defined turnaround commitments from both sides before any asset gets drafted, which is what actually removes the delay.
Can you help manage FDA and OPDP risk on co-branded promotional material?
We build the process and asset scope, not the regulatory sign-off itself – your regulatory and legal teams still own the final compliance call. What we bring is a clear map of which claims trigger OPDP scrutiny and which do not, built in coordination with your compliance function, so joint assets are not either over-restricted into uselessness or shipped with exposure nobody flagged.
What does partner marketing enablement look like for a distributor or device network?
It means building sales materials specific to the distributor's actual field conversation, not repurposing your direct-sales deck. That includes positioning against what the distributor is already selling, objection handling for formulary or reimbursement questions specific to their channel, and a leave-behind written for a rep who does not have your internal product training.
How do you coordinate KOL relationships across medical affairs, business development, and marketing?
We build a shared coordination calendar so a KOL gets one aligned outreach instead of three separate, uncoordinated asks from different departments. Marketing does not take over the scientific relationship medical affairs owns – it works around what has already been committed, so amplification (co-authored content, conference visibility) supports the relationship instead of straining it.
How does Winston Francois handle joint go-to-market timelines with a larger pharma partner?
We operate as the marketing counterpart who can hold two different cadences at once – moving fast on what your team controls, and giving an honest read on what your partner's slower legal and MLR cycle actually allows. That usually means telling business development the realistic launch date early, instead of letting the partnership drift while both sides negotiate process.
What does a partner marketing engagement cost for a biotech or pharma company?
Engagements are scoped fractional, typically in the range of $12K-$30K per month depending on how many active partnerships are in scope and how much joint-review negotiation is involved. That covers the embedded team building and running the workflow, not a fixed list of deliverables, because the highest-value work in the first 90 days is usually untangling which partnership has revenue stuck behind it.
Is this service a fit for a company with only one active partner agreement?
Yes, and it is often the easiest starting point, because the workflow and review process we build for one partnership becomes the template for the next one instead of a one-off fix. Companies with a single CRO or distributor relationship that has stalled marketing execution are a common and straightforward fit.
