Physician Marketing & Promotion
eDetailing Non-personal Physician Sales techniques
In the rush to gain Share of Voice by increasing the frequency and reach of sales calls, pharmaceutical companies may have lost sight of the value that the “detail person” has given to physicians in past years.
The declining sales force return on investment may signal that a significant adjustment will take place in how pharma companies market and sell their products to physicians. Many experts–not the least of which are the experts cited in this Special Supplement–think that eDetailing fits the bill for a solution to declining physician marketing ROI.
This Special Supplement to Pharma Marketing News brings together in one convenient document several topics and case studies on eDetailing and ePromotion to physicians.
The resultant collective wisdom of many experts both inside pharmaceutical companies and outside provide a frank assessment of the role and impact of eDetailing on physician marketing as well as the challenges that lie ahead.
- Introduction… pg. 1
- eDetailing Strategies for a Higher Physician Response… pg. 2
- The Impact of eDetailing… pg. 5
- Why Pharma Can’t Ignore eDetailers… pg. 7
- Optimizing eDetailing ROI… pg. 9
- The Future of eDetailing… pg. 11
- Intelligent Online Sampling Strategies… pg. 13
- A Private-label, Turnkey eDetailing Solution at a Fixed Fee Price… pg. 16
- eDetailing Solution as Part of a Cross-Channel Strategic Relationship… pg. 17
- Online Detailing as an Adjunct to a Part-time CSO Sales Force… pg. 18
- Expanding New Patient Starts Through Broader Physician Sample Coverage… pg. 19
- List of Resources & Experts Cited… pg. 20
Bonus Reprints Included:
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Sales Force Effectiveness Increase Physician Access and Detailing Effectiveness
Everyone knows that pharma sales reps are less effective than they used to be. Although the pharmaceutical sales force has doubled between 1995 and 2000, the number of audited calls has only increased by 10%.
Through articles and real-world case studies this Special Supplement presents the collective wisdom of many marketing experts who offer solutions to the problem of decreasing sales rep effectiveness and decreasing return on the physician marketing dollar.
The information in this Special Supplement is certain to give you a better understanding of the issues relating to physician access and how to improve the effectiveness of your physician marketing and sales campaigns.
- A Crisis in Professional Detailing… pg. 2
- Marketing’s Role in Limiting Physician Access… pg. 4
- Finding the “Right Stuff” to Revitalize Sales Productivity… pg. 6
- Facilitating Physician Access and Education Through Online Conferencing… pg. 7
- The Targeted Model… pg. 9
- Limbic Market Research… pg. 11
- Intelligent Online Sampling Strategies… pg. 13
- Increase Prescription Sales with Smart Tools at the Point of Care… pg. 16
- A Novel Approach to Communicating with Physicians… pg. 18
- Increase Sales Representative Performance and Productivity by Building Collaborative Physician Relationships… pg. 20
- Promoting Pull Through Prescriptions via Value-Added Free Medical Practice Web Sites and Patient Education… pg. 21
- Gauging Physician Behavior and CE Impact with Two-Way, Real Time, Web-Based Technology… pg. 22
- Live, Online, Interactive Conference with Experts to Provide Detailed Product Information to Physicians… pg. 23
- Audio with Synchronized Visuals Streaming Over Low Bandwidth Internet Connections for Physician Detailing… pg. 24
- Online Content Management System for Sales and Marketing Representatives… pg. 25
LIST OF FIGURES
- Percentage of Physicians Indicating Sales Rep Attribute is Valuable
- US promotional Spending by Pharma Breakout
- Impact of Sampling on Physician Prescribing
- Pharmaceutical Marketing Influence on Physician Prescribing
- Percent of Physicians Rating Information Services Good or Excellent (Internet, Reps, Journals, Symposia)
- PDR Subscriber Survey
- MD Consult Survey
- Sources for Learning Prescribing Information
approx. 26 pages.
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Reprint List
Ad Dollars Follow Eyeballs to Web
Guesstimating Total Pharma Web Ad Spending
Internet advertising revenue in the United States totaled $26.0 billion for the full year of 2010. How much of this was spent by pharma? Best guesstimate: $1 billion, which accounts for about 11% of the total pharma physician and consumer ad spend. This article includes data and charts showing trends.
Adobe Connect for eDetailing
Making Physician Communications More Effective
This article focuses on Adobe Connect for eDetailing, a specific collaboration between Adobe and ConnectSolutions, a leading provider of private cloud deployments of web conferencing and collaboration solutions.
Are Sales Reps as “Useful” as PhRMA Wants Us to Believe?
Let’s Look at Some Data PhRMA Doesn’t Mention
“New Survey Emphasizes Value of Biopharmaceutical Company Engagement With Healthcare Providers” is the main point PhRMA (Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturing Association – the industry trade association) emphasized in its press release regarding a survey of physicians it sponsored. PhRMA also pointed out that nearly 9 out of 10 physicians considered company-sponsored peer education programs to be “up-to-date, useful and reliable.”
That’s good news. But it’s always educational to go beyond the PR to learn something new, even some things the drug industry may not want you to learn.
What else does the survey reveal about the value of sales reps?
Are Pharma Sales Reps Service Employees?
The Supreme Court May Decide
The Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether drug companies have to pay their sales representatives for working overtime hours, a question that could have considerable financial impact on the industry. The question before the court in case CHRISTOPHER V. SMITHKLINE BEECHAM CORP is whether or not pharmaceutical sales representatives are exempt from overtime pay under the ‘outside sales’ exemption of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. If the Supreme Court rules that pharma sales reps are NOT exempt, some sales reps worry that they will become “service” employees similar to UPS/Fed Ex delivery people.
Are Sales Reps Necessary?
It is common knowledge that sales reps are much less effective than they used to be, thanks in part to some tactics of the industry like sales pods that carpet bomb physicians with multiple reps saying the same thing. Now, the pharmaceutical industry is set to follow Pfizer’s lead and cut 10-20% of the sales force. Is it crazy to ask if sales reps are needed at all?
Beyond the eDetail: Evolving to Educate
This article reviews Lathian Systems’ online solutions that are designed to help pharma companies capture the interest, gain the access, and obtain the time required to deliver effective educational programs to physicians
Big Pharma Sales Analytics for the Rest of Us
OnDemandIQ Inc., a Los Angeles based company, provides OnDemandIQ Insights’ Life Sciences, which is an affordable web-hosted business intelligence solution for smaller companies.
Topics covered include:
- Small Company, Same Challenges
- Combining Software and Services
- Sales/Activity Reporting
- Performance Report Cards
- Analysis On-Demand
Branded Physician Education: How to Integrate Promotion and Education
While funding for CME may have shifted out of the control of the marketing departments at most pharma companies, there is still a desire for marketing to reach out to physicians with educational promotional programs that are more within their control. MedPoint Communications, a marketing and educational services company headquartered in Evanston, IL, manages multi-channel, “within label medical education” programs for its pharmaceutical clients.
Brits Beat FDA and PhRMA: Issue Social Media Guidance for Pharma
Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority Issues Social Media Guidance for Pharma.
The Brits have won the race to issue social media guidance for the drug industry! In April, 2011, the Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority (PMCPA), which oversees the self-regulatory code of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI), published ‘informal guidance’ providing the drug industry advice on how to use online communications.
The Brand Marketing Mix
This article is a summary of a presentation made before a pharmaceutical brand team on marketing tactics that are viable now and in the future, how to avoid risk by balancing risk vs. impact, and what the marketing mix trends will be one to five years out.
Building the “New” Pharma Physician Marketing Model
MedTera’s HC Professional “Life Long Learning” Platform
This article reviews MedTera’s HC Professional “Life Long Learning” Platform — branded integrated physician marketing solutions — and presents a summary of research on how brand teams see the mix of marketing tactics changing over the next several years.
Building Power Sales Messages
The Core of Effective Selling
This article is the second in a series of articles focused on improving pharmaceutical sales call effectiveness. It is based on an interview and webinar featuring Ian McKinnon, Senior Vice President, TNS Healthcare, who spoke on building and developing “power messages,” which are messages that drive sales results.
Building the Optimal Service Model
Creating the Right Physician Experiences to Drive Business
This article presents a summary of a recent TNS Healthcare webinar and personal conversations with presenters conducted beforehand. Included are NEW research results about how US and European physicians rate pharmaceutical companies against a number of customer value points that are important in achieving success with the new sales model.
California’s Physician Prescribing Act: A History of Twists and Turns
This article traces the changes in California’s Physician Prescribing Act (AB 262) as it wended its way through various committees. It describes the provisions that may limit the use of physician prescribing data by pharmaceutical marketers, identifies organizations that have taken a position in favor and against the bill, and discusses the arguments on both sides of the issue.
Are Sales Reps Necessary?
It is common knowledge that sales reps are much less effective than they used to be, thanks in part to some tactics of the industry like sales pods that carpet bomb physicians with multiple reps saying the same thing. Now, the pharmaceutical industry is set to follow Pfizer’s lead and cut 10-20% of the sales force. Is it crazy to ask if sales reps are needed at all?
Capturing & Reporting HCP-Related Meeting Spending
Let the Sunshine In
Life Science companies are struggling to understand the complex reporting requirements and compliance issues presented by existing and new regulations like the Sunshine Act. This article is a summary of a Webinar by StarCite, which defined what pharma marketers and meeting planners need to know when it comes to meetings-related HCP reporting.
The Changing Landscape of Physician Interactions
Pharmaceutical companies are under increasing pressure to reduce costs, speed the time-to-market for new products and ensure that physicians are informed and educated about their products.
MERGE Rx recognizes this need and offers a new generation of Web-enabled software that helps pharmaceutical companies manage physician interactions — including key opinion leader (KOL) management, phaseIV trials, and eDetailing — from a single, secure and scalable access point.
Topics and issues covered include:
- Eight Great Ways to Improve Interactions
- Multi-Channel Non Personal Interactions
- Personalization
- Key Opinion Leader Management
The Changing Pharma eDetailing Landscape
The Three Main Ways of Detailing Physicians Online
A conversation with Monique Levy, VP Research at Manhattan Research, about the changing pharma eDetailing landscape.
Ms. Levy discusses how the online pharma promotion landscape has changed, and which types of programs garner the largest audience as well as how the rep relationship is evolving and the role of new technologies such as tablets.
The Changing Pharma Commercial Model in 2010 and Beyond
This article features a summary of the much anticipated NEW Kantar Health TRI*M annual survey results with physicians across the U.S. and Europe on their service expectations — plus how they rate 16 Pharma companies on reps, relationships and services. The survey looked not only at PCPs/GPs but also — for the first time — at what oncologists expect from the industry.
The Changing Policy Landscape
Prepare Now for the Coming FDA and Pharmaceutical Marketing Reforms
The two traditional means by which pharmaceutical marketers have relied on for many, many years to encourage the uptake of newpharmaceutical products — direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising and physician marketing — are about to change. Prepare now for the coming FDA and pharmaceutical marketing reforms.
The Changing Role of Pharma Sales Reps
Pharma companies need to drive maximum value out of products and they can’t do that with a ‘one-size-fits-all’ cookie-cutter approach to deploying field forces. Brand managers will look to outsourced providers to take advantage of the expertise these providers can bring to the table. This article is a summary of an interview of Nancy Lurker, CEO of PDI, Inc., which provides promotional outsourced services to healthcare companies.
The Changing World of MSLs: Determining Value
This article is an edited transcript of the May 2006, Pharma Marketing Roundtable discussion, which was devoted to exploring issues surrounding the new roles of medical science liaisons (MSLs) and key opinion leader physicians (KOLs) in physician education and product marketing.
Checking Under the Hood of Pharma Mobile Apps
Be Aware of What’s Behind the App: Disclaimers Tell Only Part of the Story
Let’s look ‘under the hoods’ of two pharma-sponsored mobile apps and compare disclaimers. We’ll compare Janssen’s PASI calculator, which has an update disclaimer, with the new AFib Educator 2.0 app developed by Sanofi-Aventis.
Closed-Loop Marketing
This article is a review of an industry conference presentation that focused focused on leveraging eDetailing for effective closed-loop marketing campaigns.
Collaborating with Online Physician Communities
Pharma-Physician Peer-to-Peer Dialog via Sermo
Pfizer and Sermo — a Web-based community where physicians share observations from daily practice, discuss emerging trends and provide new insights into medications, devices and treatments — recently announced a “strategic collaboration designed to redefine the way physicians in the U.S. and the healthcare industry work together to improve patient care.”
To answer the many questions raised by this collaboration — including concerns about off-label communications — Pharma Marketing News invited Daniel Palestrant, M.D., founder and CEO of Sermo, to be a guest on a recent Pharma Marketing Talk podcast.
This article is based partly on that interview as well as other sources.
Topics and issues covered include:
- The Story of Sermo
- Doctors Are Lonely
- Sermo’s Secret Sauce
- Sermo’s Business Model
- From Contention to Collaboration
- Mining the Wisdom of the Sermo Crowd
- Guidelines
- The Off-Label Promotion Issue
- Key Opinion Leaders
Consequences of eDetailing Technology
The Death of the Traditional Pharma Salesman and the Birth of the “Sales Cyborg.”
eDetailing in one form or another seems to be making a comeback since the recession hit the drug industry in 2007 and 2008. Which is the “chicken” and which is the “egg”? Did the uptick in adoption of eDetailing technology lead to the recent layoff of pharma reps or were reps laid off because of the economy and subsequently replaced by machines?
Cost-Cutting Strategies for the Pharma Industry
Pharma Marketing News hosted an online Pharma Cost Cutting Survey between February 22, 2005, and March 18, 2005. Respondents indicated how likely they thought pharma companies would adopt several cost-cutting strategies within the next six months. This article presents a summary of the results.
Creating the Most Effective Sales Calls
As sales costs soar, it is critical to design and deliver messages that break through the competitive clutter and impact product performance. But how can you develop messages that drive prescribing? How can you be sure your reps are giving the messages you want to convey-and know those messages are working? And how can you protect against competitive messaging and unexpected market events?
A Crisis in Professional Detailing
Two physicians — one a specialist (cardiologist) and one a primary care physician — offered their insights on how pharmaceutical companies can improve their relationships with physicians.
Current Issues and Future Prospects for Sales Force Effectiveness
The industry will have to adapt its sales model to meet the new challenges ahead. This article offers insights on the new sales model and how to achieve it from pharma experts who presented at a recent eyeforpharma Sales Force Effectiveness Summit.
Digitally-Feeble Pharma
Is Your Brand a Digital Genius or a Feeble-Minded Idiot?
When it comes to digital IQ, some brands are geniuses and some are feeble-minded idiots, according to the “L2 Digital IQ Index” for pharmaceutical brands, a first-of-its kind measurement of the digital competence of 51 pharma brands across eight therapeutic categories.
The Digital Life of Doctors
While primary care physicians in general are frequent users of the Internet, oncologists see online sources of information as more important than PCPs and therefore may need less personal contact to learn about products. That was just one of the results from the 2011 Digital Life survey of 1,454 physicians summarized is this article.
Direct to Physician Telemarketing and Sales
The point of diminishing returns in the sales trench warfare has been reached. For most companies it makes no sense economically to add field staff, especially to cover “white” territories spread across large, mostly rural areas. Another option is telemarketing offered by companies such as ADG Pharmaceutical Biotech Marketing (ADG), which specializes in providing hosted telemarketing services for the pharmaceutical, life sciences and biotech industries.
Topics covered include:
- Outsourced Telemarketing
- Demonstrable Return on Investment — A Sales case Study
- Market Research
- Seminar & Webinar Recruitment
DocCheck: Das Portal
This article describes the services offered by DocCheck and specifically focuses on the portal’s market research and physician-targeting capabilities, which any pharmaceutical marketer wishing to do professional marketing in Germany should know more about. Includes sections:
- Day of the Portals
- Universal Physician Password
- eDetailing in Europe
eDetailing: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
eDetailing proponents, inside pharma companies and outside, use survey data to justify their arguments for greater spending on eDetails. In some cases, however, the numbers seem to show confusing trends and even may suggest that eDetailing may not be all that it’s cracked up to be.
eDetailing Strategies for a Higher Physician Response
Most pharmaceutical firms have piloted eDetailing programs and scaled them successfully. However, although Traditional eDetailing has been around for at least 5 years, marketers must expand the definition of eDetailing. To this end Croom offers a Best Practice Guide for eDetailing to help pharma marketers optimize the reach and impact of eDetailing.
Effective Physician Marketing at Medical Meeting Exhibits
This article describes best exhibit marketing practices and how to measure the effectives of your exhibit.
The Emerging Virtual Medical Conference
Opportunities for Pharma, HCPs and Patients
This article describes the changes occurring viz-a-viz major medical conferences and the impact this will have on the pharmaceutical industry, medical societies, healthcare professionals, and patients.
ePrescribing: What Role Should Pharma Play?
A panel entitled What Role Should Pharma Play in ePrescribing and the Point-of-Care? at a recent ePharma Summit conference held in Philadelphia, PA, discussed the issues facing pharmaceutical companies as electronic prescribing (ePrescribing or eRx) threatens to upset the “balance of power” between physicians, pharma companies, and payers at the point-of-care.
ePrints NRx for Physician Detailing
Reprints Desk’s Solution to the Medical Marketing Blues
This article describes and summarizes the features and benefits of the Reprints Desk’s ePrints NRx solution — a new scientific article collection service that simplifies the re-use of PDFs by medical marketers, brand managers, and sales professionals.
Topics include:
- Physicians Value Support Services
- Journal Articles Highly Valued by Docs
- ePrints NRx Solution
- Managing Digital Rights
- Solving Persistent eChallenges
- Good Reprint Practices
- ePrints NRx & Closed-Loop Marketing
- Case Study: Web Portal Integration for Immediate Article ePrint Downloads
The European eMarketing Scene: Desperately Seeking Strategy
The pharmaceutical industry is struggling to develop an eMarketing strategy in Europe, which is comprised of many relatively small markets (the member countries of the EU) having significant cultural and language differences.
European Online Marketing Survey Results
This article presents selected results from a survey of pharmaceutical experts on eDetailing and Online Marketing conducted in 2005 by eyeforpharma, MediQuality, and PharmiWeb Solutions.
Evidence-Based Pharma Marketing
Using Science to Demonstrate Product Value
A conversation with Preeti Pinto, Principal at Preeti Pinto Consulting, LLC and former Executive Director & Head of Promotional Regulatory Affairs at AstraZeneca US, about the use of comparative effectiveness and health outcomes data in the support of drug promotion to physicians, payers, and consumers.
The Evolving Pharma-Physician Relationship
New Power Players & New Technology Force Changes
In this review of presentations made at the the PharmaMarketing Summit 2012, the common thread throughout is the evolving nature of the pharma-physician relationship, which is being transformed by the power of patients and payers, particularly aided and abetted by new emerging technologies.
Facilitating Physician Access and Education Through Online Conferencing
Access to physicians is becoming more and more of a problem. Doctors need immense amounts of medical information, but their patient loads limit their ability to see pharma sales reps or attend conferences or other educational activities away from their offices at such venues as local restaurants and hotels. And it is impractical to bring KOLs and experts into the physician’s office. One way to bring these resources to physicians is through Web conferencing. This report describes MedConference, a turnkey system that is being used effectively to host 6,000 live online events per year, attended by some 300,000 physicians around the world.
Fast Start to Customized ePromotion and eLearning Physician Programs
There is a broad spectrum of online promotional and educational opportunities that pharmaceutical companies have at their disposal to interact with, inform, and influence physicians. Lathian Systems, a provider of online marketing and sales solutions, offers these and more in its Spectrum of Solutions for life science companies.
FDA Drops Social Media from Its Guidance Agenda
Focuses Instead on Responsding to “Unsolicited” Off-Label Information Requests
FDA’s revised draft guidance calendar for year 2011 is missing ‘Promotion of Prescription Drug Products Using Social Media Tools,” which WAS on the 2010 Agenda. Included, however, is ‘Responding to Unsolicited Requests for Prescription Drug and Medical Device Information, Including Those Encountered on the Internet.’ FDA says this includes Internet requests. Why did the FDA put this issue at the TOP of its list of ‘issues related to Internet/social media promotion of FDA-regulated medical products’ for which it promised guidance? Where did that issue arise? It wasn’t mentioned in the Federal Register regarding social media guidance.
FDA Issues Long-Awaited Guidance for Mobile Medical Apps
Do Some Pharma Mobile Apps Require FDA Approval?
The Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH) and the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER); responsible for regulating medical devices, have issued guidance for mobile medical applications. The guidance focuses only on a select group of applications. Meanwhile, many pharmaceutical companies, such as Janssen, are developing mobile apps for the iPhone and iPad. Can some of these apps be considered medical devices requiring approval by the FDA?
FDA Finalizes Guidance on Distribution of Reprints
Clarifies How Manufacturers Can Hand Out Journal Articles to Docs
The FDA recently finalized its Good Reprint Practices for the Distribution of Medical Journal Articles. This article outlines the major provisions of the guidance and helps you learn how to make it work for your company.
FDA’s Good Reprint Practices Guidance
Pros and Cons of the Proposed Rules for Distribution of Off-Label Information
Medical journals may soon become the pharmaceutical industry’s newest physician marketing partner. On Friday, February 15, 2008, the FDA published its draft guidance on “Good Reprint Practices for the Distribution of Medical Journal Articles … on Unapproved New Uses of Approved Drugs…”
This article summarizes some of issues raised by FDA’s proposal that pundits and experts are debating on the Internet, in the press and in official comments submitted to the FDA. It also presents preliminary results of an online survey sponsored by Pharma Marketing News.
Topics and issues covered include:
- Summary of FDA’s Proposed “Good Reprint Practices”
- Preliminary Survey Results
- Role of American Enterprise Institute
- Summary of Section 401 of FDAMA
- Peer-Review
- Includes comments fromPharma Marketing Roundtable members
Finding the “Right Stuff” to Revitalize Sales Productivity
Declining sales force productivity is a major issue on the minds of sales managers and corporate executives of pharmaceutical companies large and small. More and more physicians are limiting face time and closing their doors to sales reps. The nature of sales detailing has changed over the years and the time has come to reassess the process and potential of this sales channel. The solution, according to Hossam Sadek, VP of Sales Force Effectiveness, IMS Health, is for pharmaceutical sales management to place greater attention on the quality of the physician-rep relationship than on traditional representative activity metrics such as number of calls per day. By focusing on relationships and the metrics that drive relationships, pharmaceutical companies enable their reps to deliver tailored messages that truly impact the prescribers in their territory
Free Drug Samples – The Sales Rep’s Last Great Hope?
Should free drug samples be banned? The new PhRMA Code on Interactions with Healthcare Professionals bans free pens and out-of-office lunches, but it doesn’t ban samples. Many sales consider free drug samples an important marketing tactic that they can employ to gain access to physicians. In 2005, the pharmaceutical industry distributed more than $18 billion worth of drug samples. But critics are concerned that drug samples increase costs, raise questions about the appropriateness of treatment choices, and create real or perceived conflicts of interest in the medical profession.
Free Gifts to Physicians: What’s the Big Deal?
Pharma Marketing News hosted an online survey and a Pharma Marketing Expert Roundtable discussion on the topic of pharma gifts to physicians. This article summarizes the findings of that survey and includes comments and insights from survey respondents and Roundtable members.
The Future of eDetailing
This article reviews a presentation made by David Ormesher, CEO of closerlook, inc. at the recent CBI eDetailing Conference in which he said, The future of eDetailing is physician relationship management. The benefits of creating long-term relationships include brand loyalty, detailed customer intelligence and sales integration with the field force.
Gamification
Now and Then
There’s a lot of brouhaha these days in pharma circles about ‘gamification’ as if it were the newest thing since sliced bread. These days, however, it may be easier for a pharma company to create a real-life museum educational gaming experience than a virtual world game on Facebook. Way back in 1984, gamification was much simpler.
Generation Rx: A History and Critique of Pharma “Tribal Marketing”
This article reviews the book Generation Rx and focuses on the roles of several key pharmaceutical marketing pioneers as described in the book. Includes sections:
- AMA Weighs In
- Doctors are Targets Too
Getting Market Research Right in Emerging Markets
With the challenges facing the pharmaceutical industry in the more developed markets of the US, Western Europe and Japan, the emerging markets have become the growth engine for many businesses, including Big Pharma, which is shifting its investment to new geographies. Nevertheless, in countries where market research is not yet established, e.g., China, India and the Middle East, online penetration is limited, secondary data sources are nonexistent, and the challenge remains how to get the insights required to guide business strategy in these markets.
This is the first in a series of articles summarizing highlights from a recent webinar focused on getting market research right in emerging markets. It features experts from Kantar Health, a global consultancy and marketing insights organization that was formed in 2009 by uniting Consumer Health Sciences, MattsonJack, TNS Healthcare and Ziment.
Getting Market Research Right in India & China
This is the last in a series of three articles highlighting points made by Kantar Health executives in a recent webinar titled, “Getting It Right in the Emerging Markets: Identifying the opportunities and avoiding the pitfalls in conducting market research in new geographies.”
Getting Market Research Right in the Middle East
A Land of Diversity, Opportunities and Unique Challenges
If the Middle East was a single country, it would be the fifth largest market in the world in terms of GDP. The sales of pharmaceuticals in the Middle East surpasses 20 billion US dollars per year and is growing by 10 to 15% per year.
This is the second in a series of three articles highlighting points made by Kantar Health executives in a recent webinar titled “Getting It Right in the Emerging Markets: Identifying the opportunities and avoiding the pitfalls in conducting market research in new geographies.”
Global Pharma Competitive Intelligence: A Necessity in Times of Economic Uncertainty
This year is proving to be a critical one for many industries, including the pharma-ceutical industry. Actionable, evidence-based and global pharmaceutical competitive intelligence (CI) and general business intelligence (BI) will play an important role in the drama about to unfold.
This article highlights several presentations made at the 2008 Pharmaceutical Competitive Intelligence Conference and discusses some common themes, including how environments for the pharmaceutical and device industries are changing dramatically with implications for CI going forward, the importance of keeping an eye on China, and whether CI is a strategic or tactical discipline.
Good Promotion Practices Alliance
Plenty of attention being paid to pharmaceutical marketing fraud and abuse cases in blogs and in the general media. But there hasn’t been much attention paid to good compliance solutions or best practices. That’s the mission of the Good Promotion Practices Alliance (GPP), which is co-sponsored by Reprints Desk and Prolifiq Software.
Guidelines for Off-label Communications
Off-label information distribution by pharmaceutical companies to physicians is legal and in common practice, though ‘off-label confusion’ might be the better term. This article reviews several court cases relating to false claims associated with off-label communications and suggests seven steps to safely for marketing a pharmaceutical product for an unapproved indication.
Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Generation X Salesman
This scathing review of the book ‘Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman,’ which is a tell-a-lot-but-not-all about pharmaceutical sales, explores the connection between flagging sales force effectiveness and the generation gap between Boomers and Gen-Xers. ‘Dude,’ read it!
HCP Marketing Beyond the Physician
NPs, PAs, and even RNs are for the most part overlooked by the pharmaceutical industry, according to David Mittman, PA, president of Clinician 1. This article reviews the issue and includes tips for marketing to NPs and PAs.
How to Sell a Drug Before it is Approved
Did you know that you can sell a drug before it is launched? Dr. Gene Emmer, President of Med Services Europe B.V., an Amsterdam-based consultancy focused on sales, marketing, and business development for the medical industry, advises his start-up, cash hungry, biotech companies to consider if a European “named patient program” might be an option.
The Impact of eDetailing: Will it Complement, Replace, or Become Integrated with the Sales Force?
The number of pharmaceutical sales representatives has increased sharply in recent years. More than 90,000 representatives compete for the attention of 650,000 practicing physicians, only 125,000 of whom are top-tier prescribers. Some people, maybe physicians most of all, hope that online detailing (eDetailing) will reduce the number of office visits from all these pharmaceutical sales representatives chasing after the same docs. This article reviews a presentation on this provocative topic made by David Hauben, Director of eBusiness at Aventis Pharmaceuticals.
Increase Prescription Sales with Smart Tools
Realizing the limitations of the printed package insert (PI), Wellscape, a technology company that provides software solutions designed to improve patient care has developed Smart-PI, which distills complex prescribing information and packages it in portable, stand-alone real-time tools accessible from web sites and available for desktop and Tablet PCs and PDAs.
India’s Booming Pharmaceutical Market
Is it Part of Your BRIC Marketing Strategy?
India is emerging as a global powerhouse in the pharma business with a robust domestic industry. India has an estimated population of 1.16 billion, making it the second most populous country in the world. The healthcare market in India — which includes pharmaceuticals, healthcare, medical and diagnostic equipment, and surgical equipment and supplies — is estimated to be US$ 30 billion. Revenues from the healthcare sector account for 5.2 per cent of the GDP and it employs over 4 million people. Private spending accounts for almost 80 per cent of total healthcare expenditure.
This article, written by a marketer with firsthand experience, provides an overview of the pharmaceutical markets and promotional practices in India.
Intelligent Online Sampling Strategies
New online strategies have made eSampling a tool for significantly expanding targeted physician and sample coverage. Applications include accelerating new product uptake, efficiently maintaining physician coverage for mature brands, covering hard to reach physicians and driving patient demand.
The iPad as a Pharma Marketing Platform
Is It a Game-Changer for Consumer & Physician Access?
This article summarizes how the iPad is currently being used by the pharmaceutical industry, how it is being adopted by physicians, and what the roadblocks are to using it for eDetailing.
Topics include:
- iPad – What’s It Good For?
- The iPad as a Pharma Marketing Platform
- GoMeals
- More Consumer Apps
- Opening Doors to Physicians
- iPad for eDetailing
- DrChrono.com Featured on Pharma Marketing Talk Radio
- Is It Just Another Tablet Device?
- Does No Flash Mean No eDetailing?
- iAds for Pharma?
- Is Pharma Blocking or Supporting iPad Use by Sales Reps?
Many Physicians Plan to Buy It
The iPad in the Doctor’s Office
Understanding What Physicians and Patients Desire from mHealth Applications
The Apple iPad has also become a “must have” for pharmaceutical sales reps, but how are physicians and their patients using the iPad within the clinical setting? That was the focus of a study done by a team consisting of healthcare professionals in an NYU Langone Medical Center department, led by Douglas Elwood, MD, MBA, who is currently Director, GMI Strategy and Innovation at Bristol-Myers Squibb. This article reviews the latest results of that study.
Is There a Cure for Mediocre Pharma Mobile Apps?
Listen Up, New Marketing Grads!
Mobile is the new ‘shiny thing’ of interest to pharmaceutical marketers. However, most pharma mobile apps that I have seen are pretty mundane as far as marketing/advertising is concerned. What’s it going to take to make these apps more interesting and useful?
Is Your Marketing Head in the Cloud?
The Appature Nexus Marketing Cloud Software Platform
Appature, a unique software-as-a-service provider, sees this as an immense opportunity to couple the vast amount of data available to healthcare marketers with relationship marketing technology to discover new methods to personalize and optimize campaigns to both consumers and healthcare professionals. This article reviews Appature Nexus, a Marketing Cloud software platform that drives sales growth through an integrated marketing database, campaign management tool and reporting/analytics engine.
Limbic Market Research: Plumbing the Subconscious Motivators of Physicians
Conventional market research addresses a physician’s rational or higher brain and generally elicits responses that are not a sound guide to either what the physician really means or how he or she is likely to act. What’s needed is a way to look “behind the curtain” of verbal responses and reveal what truly motivates physicians. This article reviews Segmedica’s market research methodology, which applies behavioral science to medical market research.
Managing Cross Boundary Issues
Pharmaceutical companies are notorious for their functional and organizational silo structure built around brands. Strategic issues that cross silos — i.e., cross-boundary issues such as getting marketing and R&D working together, getting a more coordinated global approach to marketing, or getting companies to work better in marketing alliances-are thornier than most because managers don’t control all the necessary resources and communication and trust are often weak.
Marketing’s Role in Limiting Physician Access and What to Do About It
The pharmaceutical industry has only itself to blame for limited physician access and two minute sales calls,” claims Gerald J. Acuff Jr., Chief Executive Officer, Delta Point, a sales agency that enhances the effectiveness of sales representatives. He was speaking at the recent Gaining Physician Access conference hosted by the Center for Business Intelligence in Philadelphia. This review of Mr. Acuff’s presentation includes the following points covered in the presentation: physician survey data about what physicians value in a sales rep; How did the pharmaceutical industry get into this mess? What is the number one people skill that pharmaceutical companies don’t teach that they should? What was marketings role in limiting physician access and how can they correct it? How does sales messaging impact physician access?
Medical Device Marketing: Worlds Apart from Rx Drug Marketing
Medical device marketing is different than Rx drug marketing, which is something attendees of the recent PharmaMed Marketing & Media Conference hosted by Med Ad News learned.
This article summarizes a presentation from that conference and discusses how medical device marketing to consumers and physicians is different than Rx drug marketing. While some device marketing campaigns take a page from the Rx arena, there are difficulties and roadblocks ahead and these are also summarized in this article.
Medical Transcript Advertising
Reach Targeted Physicians at the Point of Care
This article reviews advertRx™ and advoiceRx™, physician point-of-care marketing solutions offered by datumRx, a California-based company.
Topics and issues covered include:
- Non-Personal Marketing and Sales
- Medical Transcription is a Growing Service Area
- Benefit to Physicians
- Chronology of Transcript Advertising
- Effectiveness
- Is It Legal and HIPAA Compliant?
- What About Reach?
Merck Rejiggers Its Marketing Mix
Adam Schechter, President of Merck US Human Health, made this statement not long ago at a Goldman Sachs healthcare conference: ‘Industry must embrace new ways of engaging physicians on their terms.’
Topics covered include:
- Merck to Slash Field Force?
- Consumer Media Consumption Habits vs. Media Spend (Google chart)
- Customer Focus Means More Technology
- Engaging Customers on Their Terms
- Impact vs. Risk Analysis of Physician Marketing Channels (chart)
Mobile Regulatory Fears
PhRMA Raises an Alarm
In a blog post provocatively titled ‘An App for That, But For How Much Longer?’, PhRMA’s Kate Connors agreed with a Washington Times op-ed piece that suggested the FDA will soon require apps such as medication prescription renewal reminders and blood glucose level tracking functions to be regulated as medical devices. The op-ed author, Joel White, executive director of the Health IT Now Coalition, suggests that this effort would lead to increased costs as well as constraints on user access to these apps, which ‘may cause developers to move on to other, less burdensome endeavors.’ ‘In the end, this could hinder the way that patients can actively improve their own care,’ said Conners. Is this fear warranted? Are there apps that SHOULD be regulated by the FDA? Read this article and find out.
Most Credible Bad Ad Complaints are Submitted by Pharma
Why Now?
According to a Bad Ad Program 2010-2011 Year End Report just issued by the FDA, the program is a success despite the fact that ONLY 125 complaints were deemed worthy of “comprehensive review.” The remaining 203 Bad Ad complaints were presumably filed away in DDMAC’s circular file. Those 125 complaints worthy enough for review lead to 5 enforcement actions.
FDA received complaints from three sources: Healthcare Professionals (HCPs), Consumers, and “representatives of regulated industry” (ie, pharma companies ratting out their competitors). The “pharma” group of complaints was the most credible.
Motivating & Retaining The MSL: What Makes MSLs Tick
In addition to her clinical and professional role as an experienced and successful MSL for Sepracor in the Indianapolis, IN area, Erin Albert, R.Ph, MBA, has spent a considerable amount of time researching and gathering psychometric data about her peers’ job satisfaction in their current MSL roles.
Multichannel Marketing
Easy to Brag About, but Difficult to Do
Multichannel pharma marketing is conceptually relatively simple to understand, but incredibly difficult in practice, says Len Starnes, former Head of Digital Marketing & Sales, General Medicine at Bayer Schering Pharma. That said, multichannel is not a transient phenomenon, it’s here to stay. Starnes hosted a survey on LinkedIn to answer the question: When will pharma marketing become de facto multichannel marketing in future?
Multichannel Marketing & Medical Reprints
Putting Science on iPads, Apps, and HCP Websites
The distribution of medical reprints to healthcare professionals (HCPs) by sales reps is not only a logistical problem but a channel problem as well. Reprints Desk helps pharmaceutical companies to deploy copyrighted e-prints and other marketing materials via iPads and other tablets, or via their own apps and websites in a controlled manner as part of a multichannel marketing campaign.
Murky Physician Marketing and Education Practices
This commentary takes a look at some “murky” (ie, non-transparent) physician marketing practices and presents opinions from several Pharma Marketing Blog polls and commentators.
Topics and issues covered include:
- Physician Consultant Fees
- The Case of Dr. Nissen
- When is a Free Lunch More Than Just Lunch?
- It’s Access, Stupid!
- Dumb Blonde Reps vs. Slovenly Genius Reps
New Media Privacy Issues & Online Health Marketing
Privacy Groups Focus on the Pharmaceutical Industry
Recently, online privacy issues have been in the news as Congress exams whether it should enact legislation requiring a do-not-track function in Web browsers to allow consumers to opt out of the extensive data collection by Internet companies. This article is a summary of A Center for Digital Democracy complaint filed with the FTC and a review of the issues. The article also includes a compilation of more than two dozen ‘innovative” online marketing products/solutions mentioned in the complaint.
The New Written Prescription: Leveraging Technology to Measure Change in Physician Behavior as it Occurs
New Written Prescriptions (NWRx’s), which are uncontaminated by managed care intervention and patient fulfillment issues, are the ultimate measure of physician behavior and, therefore, the purest measure of promotional effectiveness, according to Nancy S. Lurker, CEO of ImpactRx.
This article summarizes an industry conference presentation by Ms. Lurker gave a presentation in which she highlighted real world examples of the differences between analyses performed using ImpactRx’s NWRx’s for patients new to or switching therapy versus those using traditional dispensed new prescription data.
No More Free Lunch in California?
The California legislature recently passed SB 1765 (aka, ‘fair drug marketing bill’), which requires pharma companies to comply with PhRMA and OIG Guidelines. this article summarizes the provisions of this bill, which is currently awaiting signature by Governor Schwarzenegger.
A Novel Approach to Communicating with Physicians
This article describes a patent-pending technology developed by MagicMedia Communications. It offers a novel way for pharmaceutical sales representatives to “talk” to a doctorÃÂ even when face-to-face discussion is not possible! We won’t give the secret away here. You’ll have to read the article!
Off-Label DTC Advertising: Will FDA Be Forced to Allow It?
This article summarizes the First Amendment assault on FDA’s ability to regulate off-label communications.
Online and Offline Professional and Consumer Marketing
Short summaries from the Pharmaceutical Marketing Global Summit provides information about how pharma marketing practices need to evolve.
Owning the Prescription Pad
Driving Brand Decisions in a Multi-Influence World
The security of a controlled environment for pharma marketing communication is giving way to the complexities of a dynamic environment with more empowered players, including patients who have more influence than ever before over which products make it to market and which are prescribed. Brand managers need to observe, gauge and seek to influence those influencers. Therefore, we need a new model that helps us make sense of a complex world of communications. This article presents such a model developed by TNS Healthcare, A Kantar Health Company.
Patient Assistance Program Rankings
Going Beyond Sales Force Effectiveness to Customer Experience Satisfaction
Market Strategies’ 2008 MSImage Oncology Patient Assistance Program is a syndicated study that identified what oncologists and oncology practice managers perceive to be the top pharmaceutical PAPs in the industry. The study identified how PAPs influence overall corporate image among physicians, what performance measures drive a pharmaceutical company’s PAP image, and which companies are perceived as having the best PAPs.
Pfizer Battles to Protect Lipitor Cash Cow
Lipitor Won’t Go Gentle Into that Good Generic Night. Pfizer is taking a number of steps to protect it’s Lipitor franchise and it hopes that many patients currently taking Lipitor will remain loyal to the brand.
Pfizer France: Viva la SFE Difference!
Our European correspondent interviews Annick Pichavant Ruty, VP of Sales for Pfizer France. Surprisingly, according to Ms. Ruty, lack of sales rep time with physicians is not a problem for Pfizer France but she had other internal issues that needed to be addressed to build an effective sales force.
Pfizer’s SamplesDirect eSampling Program
Sales Reps Have 48 Hours to Beat It or Join It!
Pfizer has become the latest drug company to offer doctors the option of using the Internet to order free samples of its drugs, a trend illustrating the diminished role of sales representatives, whose ranks continue to decrease. The service is called SamplesDirect.
Pharma Begins to Reveal Payments to Physicians
Analyzing the Numbers and Spreading the Sunshine
This article reviews the physician payment lists published by Lilly, Merck, and GSK. The analysis gives us more insight into the fees paid by various companies, how the money was distributed by state and region in the US, and what types of activities (eg, speaker fees vs. consulting fees) physicians were paid to perform.
Pharma, Physicians, and Sermo: A Social Media Win-Win-Win!
A Social Media Win-Win-Win!
This article provides an overview of Sermo’s new Client Center and summarizes a Pharma Marketing Talk podcast interview of with Daniel Palestrant, Sermo’s Founder and Chief Executive Officer.
Pharma Promotional Spending in 2013
Professional Detailing, eDetailing, DTC Advertising, Professional Meetings, Journal Advertising
According to the latest Cegedim Strategic Data (CSD) Audit, the 20 pharma companies that spent the most on total promotion — which includes traditional professional detailing, eDetailing, Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) advertising, professional meetings, and journal advertising — spent a total of $14,784 Bn in 2013.
How representative is this of the entire industry? It’s difficult to say. According to CSD, the Top 20 pharma companies spent $10.1 Bn on professional detailing in 2013, which is about 70% of the $14.9 Bn CSD estimated the entire industry spent on professional detailing in 2012. On the DTC side, the Top 20 spent $3.2 Bn, which is about 85% of the total of the $3.8 Bn total 2013 DTC spend according to Nielsen data. Based on these numbers, it seems fair to say the allocation of the promotional spend — i.e., the portion of the spending pie devoted to each category — of the Top 20 spenders is representative of the industry as a whole.
Pharma SmartPhone/Tablet Apps: Is There a Regulation for That?
Pharmaceutical marketers have jumped on the mobile application bandwagon as more and more companies roll out health-related applications for smartphones and touchpads such as Apple’s iPhone and iPad. But will the FDA regulate certain smartphone apps as medical devices? This article discusses the regulatory and other issues associated with pharma developed or sponsored health apps.
Pharmacy TeleStocking
Astute Development Group (ADG), a global provider of technology telemarketing and IT sales lead generation programs, manages pharmacy stocking from afar.
Pharma-Sponsored Medical Ghostwriting: What the Ghosts Have to Say About It
What the Ghosts Have to Say About It
Pharma Marketing News surveyed readers to determine if medical journal articles sponsored and ghostwritten by drug companies are a legitimate part of marketing to physicians and to get opinions on various other issues raised in the press about ghostwriting.
PhRMA’s Code on Interactions with Healthcare Professionals
To better understand the impact on the pharmaceutical industry of PhRMA’s Code on Interactions with Healthcare Professionals, Pharma Marketing News surveyed readers between July 10, 2008 and August 7, 2008, and collected comments from pharma-focused blogs and bulletin boards. This article is a summary of the PMN survey results and opinions of experts, bloggers, and anonymous commentators.
Physician Adoption and Use of Technology at the Point of Care
This article provides insight from experts such as Mark Bard, President of Manhattan Research and David Kibbe, M.D., Director, Healthcare Information Technology, American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), on the impact of new technologies at the point of care on pharmaceutical sales and marketing.
Physician-Generated Content on Social Media Sites
Survey of DocCheck Members
This article highlights results of a survey of physician members of DocCheck, a leading European physician online social network and portal site. The survey assessed the type of networks used, the frequency of posting, motivation for posting, estimation of network usage, relevance of content posted and an evaluation of the importance of online physician-generated content in the future.
Physician Participation in Peer-to-Peer Social Media Sites
This article summaries research data exploring why physicians interested in using online peer-to-peer social communities outnumber by 2 to 1 physicians who are actually using them. Includes suggestions for what these communities must do in order to provide more value to physicians.
Physicians Favor Brands With a Compelling Adherence Program
Highlights from a Physician Survey by HealthPrize Technologies
his article summarizes the results of a survey of physicians designed to assess the value of various adherence solutions — including HealthPrize — and the potential of these solutions to influence physicians’ prescribing behavior.
Predictive Physician Marketing
Now there is a method proven to predict the success of a campaign prior to launch. The ProSigma Detail Model created by TargetRx, a marketing information services company located in Horsham, PA, helps pharmaceutical marketers develop the best detail and detail piece to drive prescribing behavior.
Proposed Rules for Physician Payment Sunshine Act
Looming Challenges Cloud Implementation
This article reviews the strategic implications of the Sunshine Act and also presents highlights of the draft regulations rule released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on December 15, 2011.
Ready or Not: Gearing Up for the Expansion of ePrescribing
In a keynote address at a recent ePharma Summit conference held in Philadelphia, PA, Kevin Hutchinson, CEO and President of SureScripts, a company founded by the National Association of Chain Drug Stores (NACDS) and the National Community Pharmacists Association, looked at the changing landscape and inevitability of electronic prescribing (ePrescribing or eRx) and the implications and opportunities for the pharmaceutical industry.
SPECIAL! Includes: Pfizer’s Principles for Assuring Quality of Care by Electronic Prescribing Systems.
Re-Designing the Pharma Sales Force
An Ailing Model in Need of Change
This article focuses on presentations made at a recent conference that underscored the conundrum the industry now faces — a sales model which is steadily losing the ability to deliver results in proportion to its costs, and not much on the horizon by way of an alternative.
This leads very naturally to a provocative question — is it going to be best to focus on incremental (micro-evolutionary) changes, or is a radically different approach needed? The article concludes with some thoughts on the answer to that question.
Topics and issues covered include:
- The frequency model is finished!
- Productivity Moving in Wrong Direction
- The Boomer Factor
- Thoughts on Re-Designing the Sales Force
Reinventing the Sales Model
Moving from Sales to Service
It’s unrealistic to do away with sales reps altogether, but dramatic change is needed. TNS Healthcare experts talk about moving beyond current approaches to a new sales model–one with the right balance of selling and service to forge the strong physician relationships that drive long-term prescribing.
Rep Access Programs
Skyscape’s RAP Opens Doors to Meaningful Dialogs
Skyscape, a Marlborough, MA company that provides interactive, intelligent health solutions for desktop and mobile devices, offers a medically-relevant service that is highly sought-after among physicians. As a result, it has become a popular and effective tool for field representatives to gain access to practitioners. This article describes this program and how it can increase your product’s market share.
Topics and issues covered include:
- Just What the Doctor Ordered
- Gifts Should Improve Patient Care
- Skyscape’s Portfolio
- Pharma Services that Physicians Value Most (chart)
- Open Doors Again and Again
- Case Study
- Branded for a Lasting Impression
- Skyscape Survey Results: Trends in Point-of-Care Mobile Technology
Reporting Gifts to Physicians
Massachusetts and several other states have put either banned all gifts to physicians by pharmaceutical companies, placed limits on gifts, or or considering doing so. At least ‘sunshine’ acts have been proposed in Congress as well. This article reviews some aspects of these ‘sunshine’ laws and focuses on a recent CALPIRG analysis of drug company gifts to physicians.
The Role of Tablet PCs in Pharma Sales and Marketing
This article summarizes different aspects of this latest innovation in portability and performance and how they could be used to increase sales force effectiveness in both the primary care and hospital-based environments.
Sales Effectiveness Meets eMarketing
Steve Woodruff, Founder and Principal Consultant of Impactiviti, and John Mack team up to review eyeforpharmas Sales Effectiveness conference, which was co-located with the eCommunication & Online Marketing Conference.
Sales Force Effectiveness Metrics
This article summarizes a recent discussion between eyeforpharma’s Editor Lisa Roner and Hans Nagl, Promotion Response Modelling Manager, Shire, about how the current economy and changing pharma landscape is impacting program effectiveness measures.
Sales Rep Assessment: Shoot the Messenger, the Message, or Both?
This article is a review of Metamorph, Inc.’s methodology of using specially trained physicians to assess and validate sales strategy, marketing messages and sales aids of pharmaceutical companies based on real-time calls with reps using a standardised set of data points.
Sales Reps Debate Their Value
As Heard on CafePharma
When pharmaceutical sales reps are asked about the value of sales reps, you get some surprising comments. Tghis article summarizes some of the responses – including the good, the bad, and the ugly – from CafePharma members to the question “Are Sales Reps Necessary?”
Slides: The Currency of Communication
Review of Blue Grotto’s “Slide Collaborator”
Slides are the currency of communication in the pharmaceutical industry. To help facilitate the team collaboration in the development and approval of slide kits, Blue Grotto Technologies, Inc., a medical education technology company based in Plymouth Meeting, PA, has developed “Slide Collaborator,” which is reviewed in this article.
Social Communications in Healthcare: Summary of Roundtable Discussions
At the Social Communications in Healthcare conference hosted by the Business Development Institute in NYC on July 23, 2009, there were so many people live Tweeting the case study presentations that it’s hardly worth the effort to summarize these presentations after the fact. You can find a good summary–if only in dozens of 140-character packets–on Twitter.
An excellent gauge of the state of social communications in healthcare may be had from summaries of the round table discussions moderated by experts after the case study presentations. After a short introduction, this article provides several summaries written by the roundtable discussion leaders themselves
Socially Challenged Pharma
How Ready is Pharma to Engage In Social Media?
This article summarizes the recent Digital Pharma Europe congress where it was the time right to see that European pharma marketers are also interested in new/social/digital media in pharma, but may be more constrained by regulators than their brethern in the US.
Some Unregulated Physician Smartphone Apps May Be Buggy
Especially “Calculator” Apps Like These…
Practically every pharmaceutical company has one or more apps. The ones I am interested in are apps designed to help doctors in their diagnosis of patients. Big among these are the “calculator” apps, which calculate things such as glomerular filtration rate (GFR), Medication Adherence Rating Scale (MARS), Delayed Graft Function (DGF) Risk, creatinine clearance, dosing algorithms, Body Mass Index (BMI), and, my favorite, Psoriasis Area and Severity Index (PASI). At least one of these apps has been recalled due to a software bug. But recalling does not mean it’s not still being used by physicians.
Strategies for Enhanced Physician Targeting and Segmentation
Richard B. Vanderveer, Ph.D., CEO of the global pharmaceutical marketing and research firm V2 GfK, presents strategies for enhanced physician targeting and segmentation.
Strategies for Marketing Compliance
All pharma companies face a communications crisis that rests on the changing role of the medical sales representative. This evolution has a direct impact on the obligations of the pharma marketing organizations to be both proactive and responsive in helping to protect their organizations from the threat of non-compliance.
What can marketing do? This article offers a few thoughts from a physician’s point of view, written by Jonathan Sackier, M.B., Ch.B., FRCS, FACS who is a regular blogger at www.goodpromotionalpractices.com.
The Targeted Model: The Future of Pharmaceutical Marketing?
Remember the good days of pharmaceutical marketing? When pharmaceutical reps and doctors had personal relationships? When the sales rep was the dominant influencer of physician prescribing behavior? When reps were knowledgeable and provided the physician with useful information that couldn’t be gotten anywhere else?
Tips for Improving Small Pharma’s Sales
This article highlights five tips from OnDemandIQ designed to help Small Pharma focus and prioritize their sales teams on their most important goals — improving efficiency and boosting sales.
Translate Industry Trends into the Optimal Promotional Strategy
This is a summary of a recent presentation by David L. Stern, Vice President of Marketing for Metabolic and Endocrinology at Serono, Inc. Stern spoke from a marketer’s perspective about recent trends in the pharmaceutical industry and how to address them by developing better marketing programs.
Trends in Commercial Support of CME
Separate But Aligned with Marketing
More than ever, it is important to educate physicians about new drugs and to keep this education separate from the marketing function of the company yet aligned with commercial goals.
Members and guests of the Pharma Marketing Roundtable met via conference call to discuss trends in commercial support of CME. This article summarizes that discussion.
Topics covered include:
- Will commercial (for-profit) CME providers and producers increasingly give way to academic center networks? Are the days of the large CME companies numbered?
- Which technological and media approaches for CME delivery are gaining favor…and which are losing ground?
- What role should CME play in strengthening the communicative skills of MDs in their interactions with patients? Why aren’t we seeing more of this with the advent (peaks and valleys) of DTC?
Turning Science into Sales: Tips for Communicating Clinical Trial Results
Healthcare marketers are rewarded for increasing product revenue. However, product managers often miss a golden opportunity to drive product sales: they neglect to communicate clinical trial results properly and consequently fail to capitalize on completed medical research.
This article highlights how to effectively communicate scientific evidence in order to realize the full medical and commercial value of your brand and to maximize sales.
Value-based Pricing
This article summarizes the second half of a presentation by Uday Bose, European marketing director for GlaxoSmithKline Oncology, in which he focuses on reform attempts within European countries and pharma’s reactions, the benefits and perils of risk-sharing agreements and how pharma might best meet the challenges of the marketplace now and into the future.
Vast Majority of Drug Ads in Leading Medical Journals Don’t Pass MDs’ Sniff Test!
Over Half Failed to Quantify Serious Risks, Including Death
A study led by Mount Sinai School of Medicine researchers of 192 pharmaceutical advertisements (83 full unique advertisements) in biomedical journals found that only 18 percent (15) were compliant with Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidelines, and over half failed to quantify serious risks including death.
The Virtual Sales Rep
It’s Not About eDetailing!
A growing number of doctors prefer digital communications and the pharmaceutical industry is currently in the process of moving its sales force to a smaller structure that is more directly aligned with this new reality. One aspect of that change is the deployment of “virtual” sales reps. This article presents a Wockhardt USA case, which employed the vRep virtual sales rep platform.
What Americans Think About Drug Advertising
“Ask Your Doctor” Call to Action Works, Yet Ads Get No Respect!
The 2008 USA Today/Kaiser Family Foundation/Harvard School of Public Health Survey has some nuggets of information that give marketers further insight into the public’s attitude towards drug industry advertising. This article summarize these insights.
What the Next Generation Physician Wants from Pharma
This article summarizes results from Manhattan Research’s recently released survey: ePharma Physician® v3.0: The Future of Pharmaceutical e-Marketing, which focused on the adoption of emerging technologies by an early adopter physician audience. This audience is not small and cannot be ignored! Data are presented showing which online marketing programs are considered most effective by this group of physicians and what they desire as the optimal channel mix for marketing programs.
What Pharma Companies Spend on Gifts to Docs
At least nine states are considering bills that would require pharmaceutical companies to publicly report annual gifts to physicians, hospitals and pharmacists with California and Vermont in the lead. This report provides numbers of spending limits and average spending by major phramaceutical companies on gifts to physicians in California. Excepts from company compliance statements are also presented to give readers an idea of how pharma companies interpret the sometimes ambiguous or conflicting requirements of different states and voluntary guidelines established by PhRMA and OIG.
Topics covered include:
- Vermont Law
- What is exempt from disclosure?
- Non-prescribing Office Staff Also Covered
- Pharma Compliance with Reporting Requirements (Bristol-Myers Squibb, Pfizer, Novartis, AstraZeneca, Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals, Organon, Centocor)
- TABLE: Average and Median Annual Spending for 83 Pharma Companies
Whose Data Is It Anyway?
Pharma Marketing News hosted the Pharma Use of Rx Data Survey in June, 2006 and asked respondents to weigh in on several issues regarding the collection and use of Rx data by pharmaceutical companies.
Why Pharmaceutical Marketers Ignore ROI
You Want ROI? You’re Not Ready for ROI!
There are many reasons why pharmaceutical marketers may not be effectively measuring ROI. This article discusses several of these reasons and includes feedback and opinions from several experts who agree that all marketers – and pharma marketers in particular – have a problem with traditional ROI analysis.
Your Pharma Marketing Sucks
According to Mark Stevens, author of the current Business Week Best Seller “Your Marketing Sucks,” in the world of marketing today, people and companies are relying on the notion that a blend of “proven” or “traditional” marketing combined with slick new creative will yield results. The problem, says Stevens, is the creative ends up being the quantifying metric regarding how successful the marketing is rather than the achievement of the intended goal-driving sales.
Speaking on this topic at an industry conference, Stevens offered advice for pharmaceutical marketers on how not to make their marketing suck.
