What is pharmaceutical forecasting?

Forecasting is a critical function in biopharma as it is in most corporate settings, especially when it comes to public companies. Forecasters in pharma are responsible for creating models that predict sales of a product over time. Models can be structured in various ways and might be patient-level, script-level, or market-level. Forecasting teams may create forecasts which are shared with external stakeholders usually through the Investor Relations group in addition to doing a lot of work for internal forecasting purposes including assessment of various investment and strategic scenarios. Forecasts can be important in the internal budget-setting process as well.

Frank David of Pharmagellan has a popular book that goes into details on forecasting within pharma.