The term comes from investing, where a catalyst is an event that could move a company’s share price. In pharma companies, competitive intelligence and strategy teams use the same idea to plan around what competitors will do.
A typical catalyst calendar runs twelve to twenty-four months ahead and includes PDUFA dates and other regulatory decisions, expected trial readouts, advisory committee meetings, congress presentations, patent expiries and loss of exclusivity, and expected launches.
Its value is that it lets the organization prepare for events instead of reacting to them. If a competitor’s approval decision is expected in the spring, the brand plan, the medical plan and the forecast can account for both possible outcomes well before it happens.
A catalyst calendar is only as good as its upkeep. Good practice is to record the source for every date, to show how precise each date is (an exact day, a month, or a quarter), and to re-check the dates regularly, since submissions are delayed, reviews are extended and readouts move.