Sales & Marketing

The ideal healthcare package, in addition to reflecting the quality of the product it contains, fortifies brand equity and differentiates the product in the marketplace.

Data suggest that pharma companies engage the same key opinion leaders on assignments in three to seven departments or product groups at once.

To get along with the CFO, drug companies need to express more data in units that a health plan can integrate into its own internal actuarial analysis. The financial decision makers at a health plan want to know how a new drug affects the value of expected claims on the whole.

There comes a point when people have enough stuff in their lives, but they can never have enough meaning. Leaders have to find opportunities for their eams to do more than turn the machine of profit.

Market researchers often fail to realize that whenever they collect competitor information they are in fact collecting competitive intelligence. The same is true in reverse.

The pharmaceutical industry devotes more of its promotional budget to samples than anything else, unless you count the army of sales representatives that delivers them. This year, the average wholesale price of samples passed out to doctors will approach $15 billion-roughly twice the value of samples five years ago. And although few in the industry have come to grips with it, the federal regulations governing this enormous investment have undergone drastic changes.

It's important to empower individuals to understand and accept the responsibility for being stewards of their own health.

Partnerships with geriatric pharmacists will be critical for brand teams that market products specifically to seniors.

Not surprisingly, the biotechs hold three of the top five rankings in percent of sales invested in R&D. Even more impressive, then, are the ratios for Big Pharmas like Schering-Plough and Eli Lilly, in third and fourth place, both at a bit more than 19 percent.

If pharmaceutical companies hope to improve their marketing efficiency, they have to change how they approach their customers. For years, manufacturers have been practicing the "more is better" direct-selling approach to physicians. But research now shows what common sense has long suggested: More has become too much. Education has given way to inundation, clamoring for face time with physicians has led to diminishing sales returns, and relationships with major pharma stakeholders have broken down. Physicians, regulators, consumers, and legislators have come to mistrust manufacturers' motives and integrity. As pharma asks how its marketing strategies have missed the mark, it may discover answers in reinventing something it once relied upon: strong relationships with customers.

Gen Xers are attractive to many managers because they typically have a strong work ethic. Although they are self-reliant, they still desire to be taken seriously and want to be valued by their companies.

The pharmaceutical industry depends on good science. So what does it mean when a majority of the US population turns its back on one of the fundamental insights of modern biology?

When rebate strategies are coupled with sales force and DTC spending, it results in "margin-negative" business-that is, sales that bring in less than the marginal cost of selling, promoting, and manufacturing the drug.

The current DTC ads, through their persistent use of the term "doctor," are misleading to the public and keep all other prescribers invisible to patients.

Companies face a serious pipeline gap, partly because they focus too narrowly on scientific breakthroughs. Stakeholders also value convenient compounds with reduced side effects and fewer doses.

If pharmaceutical companies hope to improve their marketing efficiency, they have to change how they approach their customers. For years, manufacturers have been practicing the "more is better" direct-selling approach to physicians. But research now shows what common sense has long suggested: More has become too much. Education has given way to inundation, clamoring for face time with physicians has led to diminishing sales returns, and relationships with major pharma stakeholders have broken down. Physicians, regulators, consumers, and legislators have come to mistrust manufacturers' motives and integrity. As pharma asks how its marketing strategies have missed the mark, it may discover answers in reinventing something it once relied upon: strong relationships with customers.

Instead of leaving the doctor's office well informed, the patient often leaves without enough comprehensible information to comply with the prescribed treatment.

In the healthcare and pharma industries, where lives are at stake and skepticism proliferates, consumers are even more apt to turn to peers for trusted information and advice about medical treatments.

With patients who suffer from poverty, lack of education, and disease, it is incredibly easy to do damage through a marketing tactic that might be acceptable for another group.

Western pharma companies call on only China's largest hospitals in the biggest cities. By some estimates, this amounts to only 20,000 doctors.

The rep's job is getting tougher. That's the major takeaway from a recent survey of reps conducted by Epocrates. The company interviewed 300 randomly selected reps who had purchased at least one Epocrates product license certificate, asking them how their jobs had changed in the past three years.

RSS has the power to change how users consume Web-based content, giving them control of their information and increased privacy.

SPCs extend a drug's basic patent protection for up to five years, to take into account the time that may have lapsed between the filing of a patent application and the granting of market authorization.

Manufacturers will have to incorporate Part D–specific messaging into all of their current marketing materials. In addition, they should consider publication plans and CME that specifically address the needs of seniors.

The world might seem large but it's actually smaller than ever. The best way to exercise a high level of quality control is to make sure that the campaigns are globalized.

As a result of the rapid innovations in drug technology, and the increasing complexities surrounding drugs' safety, cost, and efficacy, the demand for extensive formulary reviews is growing. To keep pace, Pharmacy & Therapeutics (P&T) committees have been ardently reviewing medications to determine which ones deserve inclusion and preferred placements in health plans and formularies. While there are many factors that influence the committees' decisions, with some carrying more weight than others, pharmaceutical execs complain that there is no accurate way to predict which drugs will make the cut.

Elegant positioning strategies often fail when doctors learn that a prescribed product isn't on a patient's managed care formulary.

These are demanding times for pharmaceutical marketers.

The cost of healthcare has become so great that it's important to review the evidence to determine whether the drug is a good value for the money. Yet, pharmacoeconomics is rarely included in the decision process.

Garry Barnes says he joined the pharma industry for job security-but don't believe him. During the last 25 years, Barnes has worked for four pharma companies and built five sales forces in therapeutic areas ranging from contraception to organ transplantation.