Biotech Moves Fast. The RFP Process Doesn’t. Let’s Redefine It.

Ready to skip the traditional RFP and get to work with Real. Fast. Partnership.? Let’s talk. 

Dear client, let me describe a scenario that’s likely all too familiar for you: After months of crafting the perfect RFP—reviewed, reworked and revised by a dozen of your closest colleagues—you find yourself sitting across from your potential new agency team. You have 60-90 minutes to decide if this group of strangers will become your strategic partner. 

They’re nervous. They’ve spent weeks agonizing over every phrase in your detailed brief. They’ve invested countless hours and dollars interpreting your challenges and crafting solutions—all in a vacuum they’ll never experience again once you’re actually working together. 

What follows is a polished performance featuring creative ideas that will likely never see the light of day. Because once they truly know you, they’ll understand your real priorities and how to be a successful partner. 

I’ve been on both sides of this table throughout my career. I’ve witnessed brilliantly run processes with meaningful client interactions and thoughtful procurement leads who dig deep into their colleagues’ needs. I’ve also seen poorly written briefs, disinterested audiences (seriously, turn your cameras on during virtual pitches and try to look up from your phone when we’re live and in-person!), and decisions obviously made before anyone invested serious time and money. My personal favorite? Hearing we were “great, smart and creative”—that we essentially won—only to learn the client decided to stick with their incumbent. 

This is the fundamental flaw in today’s RFP culture: we’ve prioritized performance over partnership, process over personal connection. And the result is heaping mounds of waste – wasted time, effort, thinking and dollars. 

The Hidden Costs of Traditional RFPs 

The numbers tell a sobering story, but the human cost runs deeper. A typical RFP consumes 3-4 months from conception to decision. Biotech companies spend countless hours drafting requirements and reviewing submissions that often miss the mark. Agencies pour resources into crafting proposals for challenges they can only glimpse from afar. 

Here’s the real tragedy: most winning proposals never survive first contact with reality. Once the contract is signed and actual partnership begins, teams discover what they should have known from day one—the client’s true needs, constraints, and opportunities. Those brilliant strategies that won the pitch? Shelved, replaced by solutions born from genuine collaboration. 

We’ve created a system where everyone loses. Clients delay critical initiatives navigating bureaucratic processes. Agencies waste talent on theoretical exercises rather than solving real problems. And the biotech industry—which thrives on innovation and speed-to-market—gets bogged down in procurement theater. 

The Authentic Alternative 

What if we abandoned this charade entirely? Instead of spending months crafting elaborate proposals in isolation, what if we started with conversation? 

Picture this: sitting down with potential partners today—not in a conference room for formal presentations, but in collaborative workspaces where you can roll up your sleeves together. Instead of guessing at challenges, examine them firsthand. Rather than proposing theoretical solutions, prototype real ones. 

This transforms selection from a beauty contest into a working session. You see how teams actually think, problem-solve and collaborate. Agencies understand nuances no RFP document could capture. Together, you generate actionable strategies addressing actual needs, not imagined ones. 

Building Partnerships, Not Proposals 

The biotech industry moves fast, and partnerships should too. By replacing lengthy RFP cycles with direct engagement, we compress months of speculation into weeks of productive collaboration. The team you evaluate becomes the team you work with. The strategies you develop together become your partnership foundation. 

It’s time to choose relationship over rhetoric, collaboration over competition. The next breakthrough in biotech partnerships won’t emerge from a perfectly formatted proposal—it will come from authentic human connection and shared problem-solving. 

Spectrum is here to show you the power of the right partnership and equip you with the tools you need to make an impact. You bring the challenge. We’ll bring the strategy. Submit your entry by 10/1 for consideration and let’s build something that lasts.

This post originally appeared on Amanda Peck’s personal LinkedIn Page.