An Instant Price Estimator for Oncology Customers

Charles River leverages technology from its cloud-based Apollo platform to build a business-to-business tool for Discovery clients working in the oncology space

We all know that drug discovery can be costly and time-consuming. Adding to these complexities is the time often spent finding and selecting a research partner that has the right combination of expertise, price point, and availability. 

A Forrester study from 2018 on business-to-business purchasing found that 92% of B2B purchases start with search, 68% of buyers prefer to research online on their own, and 62% of buyers say they can develop selection criteria or finalize a vendor list based solely on digital content. With the proliferation of self-service tools in everyday life (be it your local supermarket, your bank, or at your favorite fast-food restaurant), it’s no surprise that customers are also taking the twin expectations of saving time and staying in control into their purchasing behavior at work, resulting in changing behaviors in a B2B market.

Seeing those trends in the market, and with a desire to evaluate how we can improve our own sales process for customers, a small team of designers, software engineers, scientists, and sales professionals at Charles River, a global partner with hundreds of drug companies,  embarked on learning more about this space and the opportunities we can create for Charles River customers. 

"With any new project, starting with your customer and the outcomes they are hoping to achieve is key,” says Senior Product Designer Evelyn Cagney. “What pain points were they experiencing as part of pricing out a new study? What needs and preferences do customers have when it comes to learning more about our portfolio, and understanding how well we suit their project work? We learned that while our customers value the hands-on guidance of our experts, in line with industry trends, many also expressed a desire to learn more about research options in their own time and at their own pace."

In his 2012 book “Persuading Scientists”, former biochemist turned marketer Hamid Ghanadan describes that, psychologically, scientists are looking to form a hypothesis about the best way to satisfy their need. “We saw that reflected in our own learnings from customers and in particular saw great opportunities for our oncology customers,” says Charles River Product Owner Rebecca Gallogly. “We decided to create a solution that helps oncology scientists not only by helping them understand our portfolio, but also by giving them instant access to pricing of our study options.” This resulted in the Apollo Price Estimator for Oncology.

Building on top of the cloud-based platforms created for Charles River's Apollo Platform for Safety and Biologics customers, the new Apollo Price Estimator for oncology helps Discovery customers working in the oncology space plan their budgets and make decisions more effectively. It also helps them to generate instant price estimates. Access to accurate price estimates means understanding the costs of a PDX, CDX or Syngeneic model study becomes easy and straightforward without extensive contact with sales or client services.

The intuitive user interface of the price estimator itself means customers can explore their options and customize their study choices based on both preferences and budget. Finally, understanding the value customers place in hands-on support by Charles River experts, the estimator is built to allow experts to quickly answer questions that customers may have on the study options present in the tool.

The Apollo Price Estimator for oncology studies was made available to the public on April 5, 2024, and can be found here.

Jeff Simons is Director of Product Design at Charles River Laboratories. He is focused on bringing human-centered design practices into the commercial digital transformation efforts of the company such as the new Apollo Price Estimator, the redesigned criver.com, and the Emodels storefront launched in Fall of 2023.