Pharma Marketing Blog

Where Next for Pharma?

At last weeks Eyeforpharma European Marketing Strategy meeting the key message was that the current sales and marketing model is dead, so where next for pharma?   The challenge that we now have is that prescribers are no longer influenced by the traditional cascade model and whilst payers have held the prescribing purse for a long time, they are not the only group influencing prescribers.  Prescribers have access to much more information from on-line sources and social and professional networks.   They are also influenced by clinical leads who are looking for improved patient outcomes, patients feedback.  In many cases a pharm company may need to talk to 10 different people to support a prescribing decision.

Of course the industry has known this for a while, so what I am saying is nothing new, yet so many pharma companies are still sitting back and continuing to use the traditional sales and marketing model that has served them well in the past. However, the NHS has changed – really it has. While pharma has been basking on its luxury yacht, the NHS oil tanker has been slowly manoeuvring off-course and is now going in a different direction.  The traditional one-size- fits all approach to the NHS no longer works.  Sales and marketing strategies need to be patient centric, flexible and adaptable to meet local needs and outcomes.   Companies need to fully understand the healthcare needs of each PCT and be able to show how their product and services can effectively meet these needs. PCB managers will want to talk to you if you can show how your product can improve health outcomes, achieve their targets and prevent a patient from being hospitalised.

Time for change……………

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Getting a Second Life

As we head towards the end of the second week in January our New Year’s resolutions are probably already broken, I wonder how many people are thinking there has got to be more to life. For those of you who fancy a bit of escapism there is always Second Life, an online virtual world with over 10 million residents. Participants can chose exactly who they would like to be, where they live and how they live their life. Using their assumed identify – second life, the person can if they so wish look fabulous, be successful, be a landowner, create friendships, network and much more.

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All Change – The Online Influencers

So is it time for pharma in the UK to wake up to Web 2.0? For years pharma has used the KOL cascade effect as a way of influencing other doctors to prescribe their products, but the Web 2.0 social phenomenon is changing all that. Gone are the days when it took 5 years for a paper presented at a clinical meeting to change clinical practice, today this change is instant. Web 2.0 technology allows doctors to rapidly respond to papers published online, debate them in forums and give advice to colleagues on how to implement the findings into everyday clinical practice.

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