Bernard Associates
Pharma 2.0 War Games Are Built to Win the Market, Not Just Compete

The pharmaceutical marketplace has changed fundamentally. Since the late 1990s, the industry has entered a new lifecycle stage—the Competition Stage—defined by more products, more competitors, more stakeholders and exponentially more competitive noise. Yet many pharmaceutical companies continue to rely on Pharma 1.0 competitive approaches developed for the Commercialization Stage that began in the 1960s.

Bernard Associates recognized this structural shift and created the Pharma 2.0 Winning System™, a proprietary framework purpose-built for competing—and winning—in today’s pharmaceutical marketplace. The company exclusively applies this system to the design and execution of its Pharma 2.0 War Games.

“Pharma 1.0 War Games were created to anticipate the competition. Pharma 2.0 War Games are designed to beat the competition,” says Dr. Stan Bernard, President of Bernard Associates.

Traditional Pharma 1.0 War Games are based on a military model focused primarily on anticipating competitors and differentiating one brand from another. Pharma 2.0 War Game competitors operate an election-style campaign and do NOT win by differentiating their brands. They win by ‘Creating the Agenda’—defining and owning a game only they can win. That requires influencing not only traditional Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs), but also multiple ‘Pharma 2.0 Opinion Leaders’ (MOLs, IOLs, COLs, SOLs and others).

Instead of focusing primarily on the post-launch marketplace, Pharma 2.0 organizations seek to win the Pre-Launch Phase—beginning three to six years before product approval. Bernard Associates’ approach also introduces Multi-Level Competition. Rather than brand versus brand competition, companies can compete simultaneously at the brand, franchise, portfolio and/or corporate levels.

Importantly, Pharma 2.0 is not simply a commercial model. It is a corporate-wide competitive approach, bringing together all relevant functions, disciplines, markets and professionals around a unified strategy for winning.

From Competitive Insights to Competitive Action

Originating in the 1950’s, traditional Pharma 1.0 War Games were designed to generate competitive insights. Bernard Associates believes insights alone are not enough.

Every Pharma 2.0 War Game is designed to produce three actionable deliverables:

Campaign Agenda — A powerful strategic agenda of three words or fewer that defines the game the organization intends to play and win.

Campaign Communications Platform — A single-page, overarching platform that aligns professionals, functions and markets around one strategic narrative—ensuring the organization is ‘singing from the same song sheet.’

Winning Actions — Prioritized, cross-functional, cross-disciplinary and cross-geographic actions that translate strategy into marketplace results.The result is a fundamentally different type of war game; more realistic, more customized, more engaging and, most importantly, more actionable.

Winning with Pharma 2.0 War Games

Bernard Associates brings extensive experience to this approach. The company has conducted more than 300 global competitive simulations, worked with 19 of the world’s 20 largest pharmaceutical companies and more than 150 other pharmaceutical, biotech and vaccine organizations across 60+ countries and trained more than 25,000 professionals in Pharma 2.0.

Bernard Associates created the proprietary Pharma 2.0 Winning System™ and is the only company offering this system.

Participant feedback from its Pharma 2.0 War Games shows 98 percent client satisfaction, with 96 percent of participants rating the experience their ‘Best War Game Ever.’ Bernard Associates has also been ranked the #1 pharmaceutical war games company by pharmaceutical executives in numerous surveys spanning three decades.

Ultimately, the value of a war game should not be measured by the insights generated during the simulation, but by what the organization does differently afterward. Pharma 2.0 War Games provide pharmaceutical teams with a framework for aligning around a memorable three-word-or-fewer Campaign Agenda, a one-page Campaign Communications Platform and prioritized Winning Actions.

That ability to turn a competitive simulation into a coordinated marketplace action underpins Bernard Associates’ recognition by Life Sciences Review as the ‘Top Global Pharmaceutical War Games Company for 2026.’