Pharma · Demo Call
The Pharma Product Demo Script for Clinical Operations Buyers Who Came to Find Where It Breaks
A VP, Clinical Operations who agrees to a demo is not agreeing to a tour. She has a study where FPI slipped, 40% of sites are still not green-lit, and a third of the activated ones have randomized zero patients. She has already sat through one recruitment vendor's funnel slide and watched two thirds of the referrals screen-fail on a criterion nobody pre-checked. She is on this call to find the specific place your thing will fail inside her environment — her central IRB, her CRO's SOW, her coordinators who are running eleven other protocols — and she will find it in the first fifteen minutes or she will stop talking and start typing.
That means the demo you rehearsed — funnel dashboard, referral queue, pretty geographic heat map — is a resource, not a script. The call is won on the detours: the moment she says "who submits the pre-screener to the IRB," the moment she says "our CRO owns recruitment, it's a line item in the bid," the moment she says "my coordinators will not take another login." Each of those is either a buying question or a disqualification test. Answer them in her indication, with her I/E criteria on screen, or don't answer them at all.
This playbook gives you the pre-call prep, the opening contract, three core demo loops built around randomizations per site per month and screen failure rate, the four pressure lines (integration, ownership, failure mode, time-to-value) in clinical language, and the objections you will actually hear from a Head of Patient Recruitment & Site Engagement or an Executive Director, Clinical Development. Read it out loud once before you dial.
The demo call script
Say it in your own words. The structure is the part that matters.
- 1
Confirmation email, 48 hours out — build the demo you're actually giving
"Quick note so I don't burn your thirty minutes on screens that don't apply. 1. Which protocol do you want me to build this around — the one you mentioned that's behind curve, or the next one entering feasibility? 2. Can you send the synopsis or just the top eight I/E criteria? I'll build the pre-screen logic against your actual criteria, not a sample protocol. 3. Who's your central IRB — WCG, Advarra, someone else — and are any sites running local IRB? 4. Which CRO, and is site management sub-contracted underneath them? 5. What's the EDC and CTMS — Rave, Veeva, something else? I'm not integrating into either, but I want to be accurate about what we hand your coordinators. 6. Who else will be on? If your privacy or vendor-qualification lead is joining, tell me now and I'll bring the security pack rather than promising to send it after." If they won't send the synopsis, get the indication, the phase, the number of planned sites and the geographies. Demoing 'Study ABC-101' with 'Patient 1' when they've already told you it's a Phase III in eosinophilic esophagitis across 90 US and EU sites tells them you didn't prepare, and everything after that lands softer.
- 2
Opening — 90 seconds, set the contract not the agenda
"Last time you told me you're 14 weeks past planned FPI, 38 of 90 sites are activated, and of those, eleven have randomized nobody. You said the fix on the table right now is a protocol amendment to open up the eGFR cut-off, which is another IRB cycle and re-consenting everyone already in. Still where you are?" [Let them correct you. They will.] "Anything shifted since we spoke — DSMB, interim, anyone new in the seat?" "Two things about how I want to run this. First, please interrupt. If you're thinking 'that won't survive our vendor qualification' or 'my coordinators won't do that,' say it in the moment — that's the useful part of the call, and if you save it for the end I'll have wasted twenty minutes showing you the wrong thing. Second: what's the one thing that, if this can't do it, we should stop? Tell me now and I'll demo in that order."
- 3
Core loop 1 — the funnel, told as randomizations not referrals
**Problem:** "Right now your enrollment report says eleven activated sites at zero. Your CRO's answer is 'sites are ramping.' You can't tell whether it's a site problem, a catchment problem, or an I/E problem." **Screen:** "This is your protocol's funnel, not a demo funnel. Top line is people who completed the pre-screen. This column is where they stopped — and this is the whole point of the screen. Sixty-one percent of the drop is here: prior biologic within 12 months. That's your exclusion 4b. That tells you your catchment is biologic-experienced and your amendment should probably be about washout, not eGFR." **Consequence:** "You go into the next enrollment call with a reason, not a ramp curve. And the referrals that do reach the site have already cleared 4b, so your screen failure rate at the site stops absorbing that." **Check:** "Is that the argument you're currently having with your CRO, or am I inventing it?"
- 4
Core loop 2 — the site view, and the login you're not asking for
**Problem:** "Your coordinator at site 042 is running eleven studies. Any new portal is a new SOP and a new password, so she'll say yes on the call and never open it." **Screen:** "So here's the site side, and I want you to notice what's missing. There's no login. The referral arrives as a secure packet — patient's contact window, the I/E criteria we verified with the evidence attached, records release already signed, and the consent conversation already framed so she's not starting cold. She replies to book the screening visit or clicks 'not appropriate' and tells us why, which comes back into the funnel you just looked at." **Consequence:** "Her workload goes down. She's scheduling a screening visit for someone who's already cleared eight of your eleven criteria instead of cold-calling a chart pull list." **Check:** "Pick a site you've got a real relationship with. What would that coordinator say to that packet — and what's the first thing she'd complain about?"
- 5
Core loop 3 — building the pre-screen off their actual I/E
**Problem:** "The last vendor's screen failures — you paid for volume and you absorbed the screening visit cost on every one." **Screen:** "So here's how we build the pre-screen, and I'd like to do one live with you. Your criteria, three buckets. Bucket one is what a patient can reliably self-report — age, diagnosis duration, current therapy. Bucket two is what we can verify from records with their authorization — HbA1c in the last 90 days, prior lines of therapy. Bucket three is what only the site can do: the biopsy, the FibroScan, the washout. We do not put bucket three in the pre-screener and call it qualified. We flag it and route only to sites that can perform it." **Consequence:** "That's the difference between a referral count and a randomization. And it's why the contract is written on randomized patients — if someone screen-fails on a criterion that belonged in bucket one or two, we should have caught it and you don't pay for it." **Check:** "Which of your criteria is the one you'd bet on to kill people at screening? Let's put it in right now and see whether we can pre-check it."
- 6
Pressure line 1 — integration, stated as what you don't touch
"Let me be precise about where we sit, because I think the answer is smaller than you're expecting. We never write to your EDC. Not to Rave, not to Veeva. Nothing we produce is source data and nothing we produce enters the eTMF as a trial record. The coordinator enters the screening visit exactly the way she does today. What we do: referral packet out to the site by secure delivery — their choice of secure email or SFTP drop, and yes, fax, because two of your community sites will ask for it. Status back from the site by reply, which is one click. Sponsor side, you get a weekly file: randomizations per site per month against your enrollment curve, screen failure reasons by criterion, and time from referral to first screening visit. If your ops team wants it in Vault CTMS, that's a flat file your team maps — I'd rather your Veeva admin owns that than me. So the honest IT footprint on your side is: someone approves the DPA, someone whitelists a sending domain. That's it. If your vendor qualification group wants more than that, it's paperwork, not engineering."
- 7
Pressure line 2 — who owns it once you're gone
"Your side: one named owner, and it should not be a coordinator. It's usually the Head of Patient Recruitment & Site Engagement or whoever runs site engagement under Clin Ops. Call it two to three hours a week during the ramp — reviewing the weekly funnel, deciding which sites get the volume, and approving pre-screen changes when you amend the protocol. After the first eight weeks it drops to about an hour. My side: implementation lead builds the pre-screen and takes the IRB submission through with you, and they stay on the study — you don't get handed to an account manager after go-live. There's a study coordinator on our side who works the referrals and talks to your sites directly, and you'll know her name. If your owner leaves mid-study, the handover is the pre-screen logic doc and one call. I'm telling you that because if your answer is 'we don't have anyone,' this stalls in week three and we should talk about that now instead of at contract."
- 8
Pressure line 3 — what actually happens when it breaks
"I'm not going to give you an uptime number, because nobody has ever bought anything because of one. Here's the failure mode. If our platform is down, patients who are mid-pre-screen see a form that saves and resumes — they don't lose their answers, and we call them back. Referrals already delivered to your sites are already in their inbox; nothing we do can take those back. Your sites are never blocked from screening or randomizing anyone. The thing you lose in an outage is new inbound, and the funnel reporting is delayed. Support: your study coordinator on our side is a phone number, business hours in your sites' time zones. Anything that stops referrals is a phone escalation, and the person who answers can fix it, not log it. Patient-facing line has coverage outside hours because patients call at 9pm — that's a live human, and their script is scheduling and safety-out, they do not give medical advice. If you want the last incident described honestly, ask me and I'll tell you what happened and what we changed."
- 9
Pressure line 4 — time to value, in three dates against their calendar
"Three dates, not one, and they're gated by your IRB, not by us. **Live:** pre-screen built and submitted. We draft, you and your medical monitor approve — that's usually the slow part, plan a week. Then it's your central IRB's clock. What's WCG turning around for you right now on a recruitment submission? **Useful:** first pre-qualified referral into a site, typically two to three weeks after IRB approval, and we start with four or five sites, not ninety. You want your first randomization from this channel before you scale it. **Fully rolled out:** all activated sites, plus the newly green-lit ones as they come. That's when the number you care about moves — randomizations per site per month against curve. What you owe me: the I/E criteria, one hour with your medical monitor, the site list with contacts, and a decision on which sites get the first tranche. That's the whole ask. I want to be clear about it now, because the projects that stall are the ones where the sponsor's own workload was undersold on the demo call."
- 10
Handling 'will it handle X' — slow down, get the actual case
**Never answer the abstract version.** Them: "Will it work in the EU?" You: "Tell me the actual case. Which countries, and are those sites recruiting from their own patient panels or from the community? Poland with a site-panel model is a different answer from Spain with community outreach, and Germany is a different answer again on advertising rules." **Then one of three, honestly:** *Yes, and here it is* — go show it live. Strongest thing that can happen on the call. *Yes, but not the way you'd expect* — "You don't get that in the funnel view, you get it in the weekly file, and it's a column not a chart. Buyers forgive ugly. They don't forgive discovering ugly at month three." *No* — say no. "No. We don't do rare-disease genetic pre-screening where the diagnosis requires a panel the patient hasn't had. That's not a workflow we're good at." Then: "How often does that come up for your portfolio — is that this study or is that your next three?" **Never say 'we can build that.'** An Executive Director, Clinical Development hears that as the exact sentence her last vendor said before the change order. **Write it down out loud:** "Noted — Part 11 position for the pre-screen record. I'll have a straight answer to you Thursday, and if the answer is that it needs your validation team, I'll say so."
- 11
Recovering when they go quiet
The signs: shorter answers, a beat of delay, 'mm-hm,' typing, 'yeah, no, that makes sense' said flat, camera off. **Stop. Do not add a feature.** "I've been talking for six minutes. Is this the part you care about, or should I jump?" "Let me stop the tour. What's the worry I haven't touched — is it the IRB, is it the CRO, or is it that you've seen this pitch before and it didn't work?" "Do you want to drive? Tell me what to click." And if you've genuinely built the wrong demo: "I think I'm showing you the wrong thing. Can I stop, take ten minutes on what actually matters, and come back Thursday with a version built for that?" Losing twenty minutes of a demo to save the study is a good trade.
- 12
Closing the demo — gaps out loud, next thing booked live
"Let me say back what landed and what didn't. Landed: the drop-off by criterion, so you can see whether the amendment should be washout or eGFR. The no-login site packet. And the fact we contract on randomized patients, not referrals. Open: the Part 11 question on the pre-screen record — I said Thursday and I mean Thursday. And whether your Poland and Spain sites can take community referrals at all under their local rules; I need to check that with you rather than guess. Where does this sit for you now — worth pursuing, or is there something that's already ruled it out? I'd rather have a clean no today than chase you for four weeks." "Who else needs to see this? If it's your privacy lead or vendor qualification, I'd run a twenty-minute version that's just data flows, DPA, SOC 2 and the security questionnaire — no funnel, no patient screens. If it's your CRO's project manager, that's a different twenty minutes about how referrals hit their sites without cutting across their SOW." "Calendar's open — Thursday 2pm or Friday 10am for the gap answers, and I'll send the security pack today so your team can start that clock in parallel whether or not we go forward." **Within 24 hours:** the two open items with answers, the four screens that mattered (not a recording of the whole hour), the security and DPA pack, and a one-page list of exactly what you need from them — I/E criteria, medical monitor hour, site list.
How the call actually sounds
Prospect on the left, the rep on the right.
Rep
Before I share anything — last time you said you're 14 weeks past planned FPI, 38 of 90 sites green-lit, eleven of those at zero randomizations, and the fix on the table is an amendment to open the eGFR cut-off. Still accurate?
Buyer
Thirty-nine now, and stop there. Before you show me a single screen — this pre-screener. Who submits it to the IRB, and is it going in as an amendment to the protocol or as a standalone recruitment submission? Because if it's an amendment, I'm re-consenting 60 patients and you've just cost me three months.
Rep
Standalone recruitment submission. It's pre-consent material — same category as your ad copy and your phone script. We draft it, your medical monitor and your regulatory lead approve it, it goes to WCG under your existing study number. It does not touch the protocol and nobody gets re-consented. What's WCG returning recruitment submissions in for you right now?
Buyer
Five to eight business days if nothing's weird. Fine. Next thing. We used a recruitment vendor on the last programme. They delivered 1,400 referrals and our screen failure rate went to 62%. My sites still bring it up. Why are you different, and don't say 'quality over quantity.'
Rep
I won't. Where did those 1,400 fail — eligibility, washout, or lab values?
Buyer
Mostly fibrosis stage. Protocol needed F2 to F3 on biopsy or FibroScan and the vendor was qualifying people off self-reported 'fatty liver' from a GP visit in 2019.
Rep
Then they put a site-measured criterion in a patient-facing pre-screen and called it qualified. We don't. Let me show you what we'd actually do with that — three buckets. Self-reportable, records-verifiable with the patient's authorization, and site-only. Fibrosis stage is bucket three: it never gets treated as cleared, it gets flagged, and we only route those referrals to sites that have FibroScan on-site so the patient isn't sent away for imaging and lost. And we contract on randomized patients, not referrals — so if I send you someone who fails on something that belonged in bucket one or two, I don't get paid for it.
Buyer
Records-verifiable. You just said you'd pull labs. Whose PHI is that and under what authority? Because my privacy office will be on this call in about four seconds if the answer is vague.
Rep
Patient-signed HIPAA authorization for release of records to us, obtained pre-consent, separate from the ICF, and the authorization form goes into the same IRB submission. We're not a business associate of your sites at that stage — the patient is the one authorising, and they can revoke. For your EU sites it's a different basis and a different form, and I'd rather your privacy lead and mine have that conversation directly than have me paraphrase it. I'll send the DPA template and the completed security questionnaire today so that starts in parallel.
Buyer
Fine. But here's the real problem. Recruitment is in the CRO's scope of work. It's a line item in the bid. If I bring you in, I'm paying twice and my VP of outsourcing asks me why.
Rep
What did they commit to in the bid defence for randomizations per site per month, and what are they actually delivering?
Buyer
Forecast was 1.2. We're at 0.4 across activated sites.
Rep
So the line item exists and it's the one that's behind. My experience is the change order to fix that costs more than a parallel channel, and the CRO's project manager is usually the person getting the escalation call at 7am — on two studies we were brought in by the CRO, not around them. I'd suggest we do the twenty-minute version of this with their PM in the room, so it's positioned as extra referral supply into their sites, not as a scope grab.
Buyer
Maybe. Show me a study. Same phase, same therapeutic area, and I want the screen failure number and cost per randomized patient, not a logo.
Rep
I can show you a Phase III in a related metabolic indication — the funnel, the criterion-level drop-off, and the cost per randomized patient with the client name redacted until they approve. What I can't tell you is that it maps to yours, because their I/E was looser and they had 40 US sites, not 90 across three regions. So treat it as a method demonstration, not a forecast. Want me to put it up now, or do you want the Part 11 and privacy answers first?
Buyer
Put it up. And be aware I can't sign anything this quarter — we've got database lock on another study in November and my whole team is consumed.
Rep
Then this isn't a signature conversation today. Two things I'd ask for instead. One: thirty minutes with whoever's running feasibility on your next protocol, because those sites are being selected now and feasibility runs 90 days regardless of your lock. Two: let me send the security pack and DPA so your vendor qualification clock starts while you're heads-down — costs you nothing and saves you four months later. Thursday 2pm for the two open items?
Buyer
Thursday's the DSMB. Make it Friday, and bring the Part 11 answer in writing.
Objections you will hear
What they say, and what you say back.
| Objection | How to answer it |
|---|---|
| “Anything touching HCP engagement has to clear MLR — that's two to three rounds and eight weeks minimum.” | Understood, and I'd rather you not put it in the queue yet. Nothing I've shown you is branded, promotional, or product-specific — it's pre-consent patient material and a referral packet with your I/E criteria on it. What I'd propose is a scoping call with your MLR lead and privacy on process only, no assets. If we can define what genuinely needs review, you're submitting a two-page process description instead of a campaign, and that's a different queue. If it turns out your PRC treats everything the same, tell me and I'll build the timeline backwards from your review calendar the way your launch team does. |
| “Our CRO owns recruitment. That's in their SOW and I'm not paying twice.” | It usually is, and it's usually the line item they're behind on. What did they commit to for randomizations per site per month in the bid defence, and what are you actually seeing? If it's under forecast, the change order to fix it typically costs more than a parallel channel. We're not replacing them — referrals land at their sites and the status comes back into their tracker. On two studies the CRO's project manager asked for us, because they were the one getting the escalation call. I'd put their PM in the next twenty-minute session so nobody discovers this in a governance meeting. |
| “My coordinators are running eleven studies. They will not adopt another platform.” | Agreed, and if it needs a coordinator login it fails — which is why there isn't one. The referral arrives as a secure packet in her existing inbox: contact window, verified criteria with evidence attached, records release signed, consent conversation teed up. She replies to book the screening visit or clicks 'not appropriate' with a reason. Her workload goes down, because she's scheduling a pre-qualified visit instead of working a chart pull. Pick the site you've got the best relationship with, call the coordinator, and ask her what she'd say to that. If she says it's more work, I'd rather know now. |
| “We used a recruitment vendor last study and over half the referrals screen-failed. My sites are still angry.” | That's the right thing to be angry about — you paid for volume and absorbed the screening visit cost on every failure. Where did they fail: eligibility, washout, or lab values? Whatever it was, the pattern is usually the same — a site-measured criterion got treated as patient-reportable. We build the pre-screen off your actual I/E, we never mark a site-only criterion as cleared, and we contract on randomized patients rather than referrals. If someone screen-fails on a criterion we should have caught, that's on us and it doesn't get invoiced. |
| “Privacy, IT security, vendor qualification and a GxP assessment — that's four months before procurement even opens a file.” | It is, if we start cold. Send me your vendor security questionnaire and your DPA template today — the completed pack, SOC 2, the HIPAA and GDPR positions and our Part 11 documentation are ready to go out this afternoon. That runs in parallel with you deciding whether this is even worth doing, and it costs you nothing to start the clock. On the GxP question, I'd rather be precise: we don't hold source data and nothing we produce enters the eTMF as a trial record. If your quality group disagrees with that scoping, I want that conversation in week one, not week twelve. |
| “There's no budget line. This was set last year.” | Where does a month of trial delay get charged? Most groups fund this from the study budget as a rescue line, or out of the change-order money that would otherwise go to the CRO for the same problem. If your monthly burn is what you told me and this pulls LPI in by six weeks, it's a redirection, not a new ask — and cost per randomized patient is the number that makes that argument for you. Who owns the study-level budget, you or clinical finance? Because if it's clinical finance, I should be building that one-pager for you, not making you build it. |
| “We're mid-readout. Nobody here signs anything new this quarter.” | Then let's not make this about a signature. Your next protocol — Q3 enrolment? Those sites are being selected right now and feasibility takes 90 days regardless of what happens to your lock date. Give me thirty minutes with the person running feasibility to map that site list, and let me start your security review in parallel. Day the readout clears, you're not opening a blank feasibility questionnaire and waiting four months on vendor qualification. |
Questions reps ask about this call
- How is a pharma product demo script different from a normal SaaS demo script?
Two things. First, your buyer's timeline is not controlled by them — it's controlled by a central IRB, an MLR queue, a CRO's SOW and in commercial cases a PDUFA date. So every capability claim has to be paired with a clock: who submits, to whom, and how long that body takes. Second, the disqualification tests come earlier and harder. A VP, Clinical Operations will interrupt inside three minutes with 'who submits this to the IRB' or 'whose PHI is that' — and if you handle it with 'great question, I'll come back to it,' you lose the room silently. Build the script so the compliance answers sit in the first ten minutes, not the appendix.
- Which screens should I actually show a VP, Clinical Operations or a Head of Patient Recruitment & Site Engagement?
Three, not twelve. One: the funnel broken down by which I/E criterion people fail on — that's the screen that tells them whether their protocol amendment should be about washout or about a lab cut-off. Two: the site-side view, specifically to show there's no coordinator login. Three: the pre-screen builder with their own criteria typed in live. Everything else — admin, user management, the geographic heat map — is a feature they now have to evaluate and defend internally. Leave it out.
- What metrics should be visible on screen during the demo?
Randomizations per site per month against their enrollment curve forecast, and screen failure rate broken out by reason. Those are the two numbers a Clin Ops leader is judged on in the weekly enrollment call. Depending on the buyer, add site activation cycle time from contract to green-light in days, cost per randomized patient, and days from FPI to LPI against the protocol timeline. For a VP, Medical Affairs or a Director, Field Medical the equivalents are target HCP reach and frequency and insights logged per quarter — different demo entirely.
- How do I answer the 21 CFR Part 11 and validation question without stalling the demo?
Answer it with scope, not with a claim. Say what you are not: whether you hold source data, whether anything you produce enters the eTMF or the regulatory submission, whether the site's EDC entry changes at all. Then say what documentation you have ready and offer to send it the same day so their quality and IT security review runs in parallel with their evaluation. If you don't know their quality group's position, say 'I'd rather be precise — if your QA disagrees with that scoping I want that in week one, not week twelve.' Never say 'we're Part 11 compliant' as a one-liner to a Chief Medical Officer; it reads as someone who hasn't been through a GxP assessment.
- The buyer says the CRO owns recruitment. Do I stop?
No, you get specific. Ask what the CRO committed to for randomizations per site per month in the bid defence and what's actually happening. That one question moves the conversation from scope politics to a performance gap, and the change order to close that gap is often more expensive than a parallel channel. Then de-escalate: offer to run a short session with the CRO's project manager in the room, positioned as additional referral supply into their sites rather than a scope grab. Sponsors do not want to referee a vendor fight during an enrollment crisis.
- What should I send within 24 hours of the demo?
Four things, nothing generic. The open items from the call with actual answers and a date you committed to. The three or four screens that mattered, not a full recording. The security and DPA pack if privacy, IT security or vendor qualification will be involved — send it whether or not they asked, so their clock starts. And a one-page list of what you need from them: the I/E criteria, one hour with the medical monitor, the site list. Buyers who get blindsided by their own workload stall in week three.