Patient Services and Program Launch
Building a complete, compliant, 416-person patient support operation inside a fixed 76-day launch window.
A patient services and commercialization partner to the biopharmaceutical industry was preparing to launch a new patient support program for a major pharmaceutical manufacturer.
The program would help patients access and navigate a specialty drug through a complex healthcare system. Its success depended on establishing a fully operational contact center with the leadership, clinical personnel, benefits expertise, training, and compliance readiness required to support patients from the first day.
Only 76 days remained before the scheduled launch.
After reviewing the program with company leadership, our experts determined that the existing plan did not provide the leadership or frontline capacity required for a successful launch.
The company needed:
The deadline was fixed. Missing it could expose the company to financial and contractual consequences exceeding $1 million, with the potential for several million dollars in losses based on its commitments to the pharmaceutical manufacturer.
The challenge was not simply to fill positions. It was to build a complete, compliant, launch-ready operation at scale and under severe time pressure.
We assembled a team of experts to work directly with company leadership and manage the workforce-readiness initiative. Two workstreams began immediately.
Leadership search. Our team launched a nationwide search for the new program director and supervisory leadership. These were not replacement hires for established positions. The leadership structure was being created specifically for the new program, requiring candidates who could join quickly, help establish the operation, and lead a large team through training and launch.
The program director and supervisory team were sourced and onboarded within 30 days.
Frontline workforce mobilization. At the same time, we developed a large-scale local campaign to attract qualified patient support nurses and benefits specialists.
The campaign combined:
Client representatives participated in candidate conversations, while our team managed the event and the wider recruitment process.
More than 2,000 people participated virtually or in person, producing substantially more qualified applicants than the program required.
Our team managed the workforce process through accepted offers and preemployment clearance.
This included candidate attraction, sourcing, screening, process coordination, hiring-event management, and preparation of the selected workforce for transfer into the company's onboarding and training process.
The client retained responsibility for its internal onboarding and program-specific training, including the clinical, operational, technology, and compliance requirements associated with the pharmaceutical program.
This division of responsibility allowed the company's leaders to concentrate on program design and training while our team built and cleared the workforce required to execute it.
All 416 frontline positions were filled and accepted with approximately six weeks remaining before launch.
The completed workforce was turned over to the company with enough time for onboarding, training, compliance preparation, testing, and operational validation.
Before this engagement, the company's best workforce-readiness runway for a comparable program had been approximately three weeks. This engagement doubled that previous best.
Rather than entering the final weeks with unresolved hiring requirements, the company entered its training and testing period with the full frontline workforce, program director, and supervisory team in place.
The program launched successfully and on schedule.
| Measure | Result |
|---|---|
| Time from engagement start to scheduled launch | 76 days |
| Frontline nurses and benefits specialists hired | 416 |
| Leadership team | Program director and supervisory team assembled |
| Time to complete executive and supervisory hiring | 30 days |
| Hiring-event participation | 2,000+ virtual and in-person attendees |
| Workforce-readiness runway | Approximately six weeks |
| Previous company best | Approximately three weeks |
| Launch compliance | 100% compliant at go-live |
| Available operating capacity | Capacity exceeded initial launch requirements |
| One-year employee retention | More than 98% |
| Launch outcome | Completed successfully and on schedule |
Completing the workforce six weeks before go-live gave the company something more valuable than filled positions. It gave the operation time.
That additional runway allowed the client to:
The one-year retention rate of more than 98% also demonstrated that speed did not come at the expense of workforce stability.
The result depended on treating workforce creation as part of the operating launch, not as a series of isolated hiring assignments.
Leadership recruitment, frontline workforce mobilization, media engagement, educational partnerships, candidate processing, and launch timing were managed as connected parts of a single execution plan.
Several factors were critical:
United Ops assembles the right combination of operators, functional experts, leadership resources, and execution specialists around the specific business outcome.
For this engagement, the objective was not simply to recruit hundreds of employees. It was to give the company a fully staffed, compliant, and operationally prepared patient support program before a fixed pharmaceutical launch date.
Our team worked directly with company leadership, built the necessary leadership structure, mobilized the regional labor market, managed the workforce process, and delivered the capacity required for a successful launch.
When a program deadline carries significant financial, contractual, and reputational consequences, every workstream must support the same outcome.
Build the leadership. Mobilize the workforce. Protect the launch.
When a deadline cannot move, leadership, capacity, compliance, and training have to advance together. Let's look at what your launch actually requires.
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