BeVard Group — Deirdre BeVard

Deirdre BeVard · BeVard Group LLC

I have spent more than thirty years in life sciences because the work matters in the most concrete sense. At the end of every development decision is a patient waiting for a treatment that does not yet exist. Collectively we must solve for trials that could reach them but don’t, and a system with more capacity to change than it typically allows itself.

What slows it down is rarely the science. It is the distance between what an organization designs and what it is built to deliver. I advise life sciences leadership on closing that distance: at the enterprise level, where strategy meets operating model, and at the delivery level, where trials reach the patients they were designed for.

Book a conversation deirdre@bevardgroup.com

How I Engage

Advisory

Retained counsel (defined days per week or month) to executive/senior teams and a thinking partner to the leaders who own delivery. I bring perspective, directness, and the ability to make complicated things actionable. Your team holds the decisions and owns the outcome.

Engagements usually begin with a short period of orientation — conversations across your team and your partners, so the advice is grounded in your situation rather than the general case.

Where a more in-depth assessment helps

A fixed-scope, fixed-fee assessment of where your organization stands against what you intend to do. Structured conversations across your team, your partners and your stakeholders, resulting in a prioritized readout on what your operation can and cannot carry, with recommended actions.

Useful when a decision is large enough to warrant independent perspective and evidence, or you are unclear about what needs attention. It is available, not required, as a foundation for the advisory work.

Areas of Expertise

Operating Model and Transformation

For organizations whose strategy and structure to deliver it are no longer aligned. Also relevant for companies in diligence, acquisition or integration.

Operating model health checks can identify whether your structure has outgrown or overgrown your ability to deliver your ambitions. Organizational complexity, or even comfort, can surprisingly take over without realizing it until it shows up in longer cycle times, phase transition times or outdated approaches. I help recognize the patterns and work with your teams to design the changes that matter. Together we will move quickly without losing rigor, translating ambiguity into clear actionable direction while effectively engaging the people with purpose.

What you end up with

A decision about your operating model you can act on — what changes, in what sequence, who owns it, and what you stop doing. Sometimes that is a handful of incremental adjustments. Sometimes it is a full transformation with an office set up to run it. The scale should follow the problem rather than the ambition.

Covers operating-model and organizational design, portfolio and pipeline governance, acquisitions & integrations, and R&D or enterprise transformation. Where the scale warrants it, this extends to transformation management offices and the technology and data decisions that either enable the model or quietly undermine it.

Development Operations and Trial Modernization

For organizations whose delivery capabilities, and whose reach to patients and providers, need to evolve with the pipeline.

Many clinical operations organizations and methods were built based on an organization’s past rather than its ambition. I work with your team on solutions designed to reduce friction, to engage your external partners effectively, and to identify where technology can best enable your optimized processes. I partner with your organization to move patient focus from a tagline to an operating principle by embedding the site and patient perspective into the drug development lifecycle.

What you end up with

A realistic view of whether your organization has the core capabilities to deliver the portfolio you have committed to, and where it will strain first. A plan for what to do about it, whether that is strategic externalization (vendors), a modified operating model or updated methods and processes. And where your workforce needs to grow, and who is ready to lead it.

Covers clinical development operations capability and organizational design, individual and team coaching, CRO and externalization strategy, feasibility and enrollment realism, risk-based quality and oversight models, the technology and AI that genuinely reduce effort rather than adding another layer to manage, and patient engagement and participant representation built into trial design.

If you sell into pharma and biotech

For technology companies and service providers who need to understand how the buyer actually decides.

I spent thirty years on the other side of the pitch. I ran externalization strategies, sat on investment committees, and chose the partners. Proposals usually fail because they solve the problem the provider understands rather than the one the sponsor is accountable for; they read “vanilla” like they are for any client; or they clearly over-promise. I work with providers to help them understand the context and the problems we are all trying to solve to get products to patients.

Covers positioning and pain point discovery, decision considerations, expectation alignment, and how to show up authentically as a fit-for-purpose partner.

About

I spent more than thirty years in life sciences, building and leading R&D capabilities including clinical development operations, portfolio & project management, outsourcing & business operations, R&D enabling technology and more at Otsuka, Endo, Nektar, and CSL. I also built from scratch and early stage, the capabilities to bring clinical research into community practices.

Most recently I led enterprise R&D transformation at CSL as Senior Vice President, Strategic Transformation, accountable to the CEO and Executive Team for a program delivering multi-million dollar recurring annual benefit, a 50 percent fixed-cost reduction, and a substantial reshaping of the organization and its geographic footprint. I am driven by the patient impact and am proud to have been part of the team that led the operations behind trials that delivered approved products such as ABILIFY, PLETAL, HEMGENIX, ANDEMBRY and KOSTAIVE.

Having seen drug development from multiple perspectives: the sponsor, the service provider, and the clinical trial site, has been a privilege and equips me to quickly assess whether a problem is design, talent, model or vendor.

PharmaVoice 100 Most Inspiring People — Change Agents

The WHY

Simply put, the patients are the why, most especially the patients for whom there were no good options. I continue for them...for Eric, Craig, Joelle, and so many others.

In addition to my work, I serve on the board of Rona’s FUN LAB, a nonprofit working to improve how care is delivered to critically ill children. I also volunteer locally in patient care settings. Throughout my career I have co-chaired industry initiatives, served on advisory boards, etc. related to patient access to clinical research. I am drawn to mission driven organizations in both my career and volunteer opportunities.