Life Science GTM Glossary: ICP, Readiness, CRO, CDMO, and More

Core GTM concepts

ICP (ideal customer profile)

A definition of the companies and buyers a business is best positioned to sell to and win, expressed as a set of firmographic and behavioral attributes. In life science this typically needs two layers: a company profile (therapeutic area, modality, development stage, size) and a buyer profile (function and seniority). See building an ICP as a CRO or CDMO.

TAM / SAM / SOM

Three nested measures of market size: total addressable market (TAM) is the full revenue opportunity for a category, serviceable addressable market (SAM) is the portion a company can actually serve given its capabilities and geography, and serviceable obtainable market (SOM) is the portion realistically winnable in a given period given competition and go-to-market capacity. For a CDMO, TAM might be all outsourced biologics manufacturing spend; SAM narrows to the modalities and geographies it actually runs; SOM narrows further to what is winnable this year given sales capacity and existing pipeline.

Fit score

A measure of how closely an account or contact matches an ICP. Company fit scores the account; buyer fit (or contact fit) scores whether a specific person matches the target buyer profile. Fit tells you which companies are worth your time, before you get to timing. See how to score account fit.

Buying signal

A specific, observable event used as evidence that an account may be entering a buying window: a funding round, a hire, a clinical trial milestone, a conference booking. Signal strength varies widely by type and by what a company sells. For the full catalog of life science specific signal types, see the GTM signals glossary.

Intent data

Data that indicates a buyer’s likely interest in a product category, typically derived from content consumption, search behavior, or third-party research activity. This is the general B2B sales term. In life science, intent data of this kind overlaps only partly with the industry-specific signals, trial phase transitions, FDA designations, funding, that tend to be more directly observable and predictive. See readiness below.

Readiness

Whether something recent at an account makes now the moment to reach out. Readiness is which of your good-fit companies to contact now, built from buying signals rather than content-consumption data. It is the life science version of what general B2B sales calls buying intent. See timing outreach with readiness signals.

Priority

The rank order that results from combining fit and readiness, used to determine which accounts a sales team works first and in what order within a working list. Most prioritization approaches gate on fit first (is this account in the addressable market at all), then rank the fit-qualified list by readiness (is now a good time).

Account prioritization

The process of ranking a set of accounts to determine which ones a sales team should work, and in what order. See prioritizing accounts: fit and readiness for the underlying framework.

Multichannel sequence

A structured series of outreach touches across more than one channel, typically email, phone, and a professional network like LinkedIn, sent to a contact over a defined period. See how to run multichannel outreach.

Outreach cadence

The timing and spacing of touches within a sequence, for example three emails and two calls spread over twelve days. Cadence should generally track readiness: a strong, time-limited signal justifies a tighter cadence than routine prospecting. See how to time outreach.

Life science fundamentals

General industry vocabulary that shows up constantly in life science GTM work, independent of any particular vendor or sales methodology.

CRO (contract research organization)

A company contracted by a drug or device sponsor to carry out clinical-research work, trial management, monitoring, data collection, on the sponsor’s behalf. A CRO does not hold the marketing application for the product it works on. A CRO runs the clinical and research side of a program; it does not manufacture the product, that is a CDMO’s role. Handing an obligation to a CRO does not transfer the sponsor’s ultimate regulatory responsibility for the trial. See the GTM playbook for CROs.

CDMO (contract development and manufacturing organization)

A company that provides outsourced drug development and manufacturing services, spanning formulation and process development, scale-up, and clinical- through commercial-scale manufacturing. A CDMO differs from a CMO (contract manufacturing organization) by scope of service, not size: a CMO manufactures a product that has already been developed, while a CDMO also does the development and process work before manufacturing. A company with no in-house formulation team needs a CDMO, not just a CMO. See the GTM playbook for CDMOs.

CGT (cell and gene therapy)

An umbrella term for two related categories of therapy: cell therapy, which administers living cells to the patient (for example CAR-T), and gene therapy, which modifies gene expression or alters a patient’s genetic sequences (typically via a viral vector). CGT products are regulated as biologics, through a BLA, not as small-molecule drugs. CGT is not identical to the broader category "regenerative medicine," or to "ATMP" (advanced therapy medicinal product), the equivalent term used in the EU. CGT programs generally carry distinct manufacturing and supply-chain requirements compared with small molecules or conventional biologics, which is one reason modality (see below) is a significant ICP dimension for CDMOs specifically.

Therapeutic area

The disease or condition domain a company’s programs target, such as oncology, cardiology, neurology, or rare disease. In short: what disease. Therapeutic area and modality (below) are two independent axes, not a hierarchy: a single modality (say, cell therapy) spans many therapeutic areas, and a single therapeutic area (say, oncology) is addressed with many modalities. Therapeutic area is one of the most common ICP dimensions in life science GTM.

Modality

The technology or format a therapy uses, for example small molecule, biologic (including monoclonal antibodies), RNA therapeutic, cell therapy, gene therapy, or radioligand. In short: how it works. Modality is independent of therapeutic area (see above), not a subset of it, and it largely determines what kind of development and manufacturing infrastructure a program needs, which makes it a key ICP axis specifically for CDMOs.

Clinical trial phases (I / II / III)

The sequential stages of human testing a therapy generally goes through, defined by primary objective rather than by size: Phase 1 evaluates safety and dosing (often in healthy volunteers), Phase 2 evaluates preliminary efficacy and safety in patients with the condition, and Phase 3 is the larger, confirmatory (pivotal) efficacy trial that supports an NDA or BLA filing. A trial classified as "Phase 0" is now formally termed "Early Phase 1" in FDA and ClinicalTrials.gov nomenclature; it is an exploratory, non-therapeutic-intent stage and relatively rare. Phase 4 refers to post-approval surveillance after a product is already on the market. Each phase transition roughly corresponds to a step change in trial complexity and budget, which is why it is treated as a high-value buying signal; see phase transition in the GTM signals glossary.

IND / NDA / BLA

The core FDA application types spanning drug development: an IND (Investigational New Drug application) is required before human trials can begin, for any modality, and covers preclinical safety data and the trial plan. After Phase 3, a sponsor files for marketing approval: an NDA (New Drug Application) for a small-molecule drug, or a BLA (Biologics License Application) for a biologic, including cell and gene therapy products. The IND gate applies uniformly regardless of modality; the NDA-versus-BLA split is what is modality-specific, small molecules go through an NDA, biologics go through a BLA. NDAs and BLAs are reviewed by different FDA centers under different statutory authority, which is part of why the two are tracked separately rather than treated as interchangeable filings.

Principal investigator (PI)

The individual formally responsible for conducting a clinical trial at a given site under FDA regulations, accountable for administering the investigational product and for the trial’s protocol and regulatory compliance there. PI is a site-level, trial-specific regulatory role, not an honorific or a general seniority marker, and it does not automatically carry over from one trial to the next. A named PI on a newly registered or newly expanded trial is often the most specific, site-level contact for outreach tied to clinical trial signals. PI is not the same thing as KOL (below), though the two frequently overlap.

KOL (key opinion leader)

A physician, researcher, or other expert broadly recognized as influential within a therapeutic area, whose views shape peer prescribing habits, treatment guidelines, and clinical practice more widely. KOL is a commercial and reputational designation with no formal regulatory definition, unlike PI, which is a specific, FDA-defined trial role. A KOL is typically engaged through advisory boards, speaker programs, or scientific input, independent of running any particular trial. The two roles often overlap in the same person, but they are not synonyms: KOL status is about influence, PI status is about a defined regulatory role on a specific trial. Their public activity, a program, a trial, a publication, a conference talk, is often an early, credible signal of scientific validation and downstream adoption.

Biotech vs. pharma buying motion

The difference in how early-stage biotech companies and large pharmaceutical companies typically buy: biotech buying tends to be faster and more concentrated in a small executive team, while pharma buying tends to be slower, more committee-driven, and shaped by existing vendor relationships and procurement process. This distinction matters for GTM because targeting and cadence should differ: biotech outreach can move quickly once fit and readiness are clear, while pharma outreach usually requires mapping multiple stakeholders and a longer cycle.

How Arcova frames this

Two terms Arcova uses to describe its own approach, included here because they are specific enough to be worth defining precisely rather than left as marketing language.

Readiness scoring

Arcova’s term for turning buying-signal activity (funding, clinical, regulatory, hiring, and conference events) into a structured, comparable score that indicates how likely an account is to be in an active buying window right now. Unlike a fit score, which is relatively static, a readiness score is meant to change as new signals appear, so it can be used to rank an already fit-qualified account list by timing rather than by attributes alone. See how to score readiness.

Signal-based GTM for life science

Arcova’s framing for a go-to-market approach that prioritizes accounts using public, life science specific buying signals such as funding, clinical trial activity, regulatory milestones, hiring, and conference presence, rather than relying only on static firmographic fit or generic B2B intent data. The underlying premise is that in life science, timing usually matters as much as fit, because programs, budgets, and organizational priorities change quickly around discrete, publicly observable events.