Pharmaceutical co-promotion decision making.

Ideally, both co-promotion companies should be aligned and have identical objectives and agree on how to achieve these objectives. But that is not always the case. When senior management disagrees, this makes your job much tougher. You still have to come up with a mutual and acceptable decision. You have a few co-promotion decision-making options in this scenario;

1) try influencing your counterparts to convince their senior management to see your company's point of view (Even if they agree with you, they may not be able to change their senior management's minds.)

2) try convincing your senior management to see the other company's point of view (You may in fact agree with your counterparts more than your own senior management. Tread carefully in this scenario as you could be perceived as disloyal to your company, which could put you at risk career-wise.)

3) work with your counterparts to come up with an agreeable middle ground, and both try to sell this compromise to your senior management.

Typically, co-promotion agreements clearly identify processes and employees involved in managing disagrements. This means that the contract identifies which company, and who within the company, has the right to make the final decision if a mutual agreement does not seem possible. If this happens in your situation, then you are legally obliged to follow the decision made by the co-promotion partner.

Either way, there is a lot of work to be done, and probably some head butting along the way. Despite the tense moments, always act professionally and respectfully with both companies.