Onyx Health

Where Next for Pharma?

Onyx Health — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:47:43 +0000

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……………

The Pharmaceutical Advisor’s Blog

Onyx Health — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 16:19:55 +0000

I recently had a conversation about Bloggers with a number of product managers. Whilst they had some concerns about patient Bloggers, most seemed oblivious to healthcare professionals developing Blogs and the potential influence they may have.

Although there are quite a few doctors who are very active and willing to share their opinions in the forums on www.doctors.net, not many actually produce personal Blogs. But Blogging is certainly going to be one of the ways forward to influence others in the medical profession.

There are already a couple of good examples appearing that could have a positive or negative impact on brands. www.prescriber.org.uk is a great example of how a pharmaceutical advisor can influence GPs.

Matthew Robinson, the author of the Blog, sends out daily commentaries about various drug related issues. Matthew scours the medical press on a daily basis to source information that he thinks is pertinent to primary care prescribing. Today he is talking about the influence that the pharmaceutical industry may have on nurse prescribing, yesterday he talked about clopidogrel rebound following a study published in JAMA, and on Tuesday he posted highlights of a study comparing nicotine replacement with Champix. The other good thing about Matthew’s Blog is that he always gives an action point so GPs know what to do with the information.

Matthew is of course not the only pharmaceutical advisor writing a Blog. The launch of the National Prescribing Centre’s NCPi website now gives pharmaceutical advisors and pharmacists an opportunity to participate in discussion forums and write Blogs about issues they are concerned about.

So what can pharma do to engage with Bloggers? The PMPCA currently recommend that pharmaceutical companies do not sponsor Blogs and to be perfectly honest I cannot see any real value in doing so. However, companies should be engaging with Bloggers by having an open and honest dialogue with them and being upfront about their needs. It is also important that Bloggers are kept up-to-date and given the latest clinical data about a particular brand. Bloggers could also be quite useful in helping companies get the right messages out behind a particular product problem, recall or discontinuation and therefore their influence should not be under estimated.

Getting a Second Life

Onyx Health — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 11:18:36 +0000

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.

Until recently Second Life was developing entire subcultures, that are miles away from their real life and was ruled by entertainment and people having a great time. But as its world has developed, its residents are using the site for education purposes. Although most people have a pseudonym many are discussing real life issues, as the technology platform allows use of video, audio, images, text and links to in-world activities.

The number of medical projects being initiated on Second Life are growing substantially, as people from the same field are able to collaborate and share information much more readily on Second Life. The Ann Myers Medical Centre is a virtual medical school where medical students learn more about disease process, recognition and treatment. Most of the doctors behind this project are consultant specialists who are giving their time voluntarily.

There has also been a proliferation of patient support networks created on Second Life. If you are a patient, you can find people coping with the same problems as you and meet them virtually. Many patient support groups are looking in to how they can further support disease awareness programmes on Second Life.

At present the major opportunities seem to be in medical education, disease awareness, diagnosis and patient communications. If for example your brand is for a disease where signs and symptoms are often missed and you are constantly having to re-educate doctors about this, it might be worth talking to the Ann Myers Medical Centre, as they recently ran a virtual event for medical students where they had to analyse a patient’s history and various lab results to identify a diagnosis. The doctors then met in a discussion group with a virtual mentor to discuss the condition and how best to treat it. Alternatively, the Virtual Neurological Education Centre offers an on-line virtual training environment for those specialising in neurological disorders and NHS London has already created its own hospital on Second Life.

Second Life may be a bit of escapism for some people but it does seem that it is starting to also become an essential business community that we cannot ignore.

e-Marketing New Year Resolutions Worth Keeping

Onyx Health — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 17:54:00 +0000

It is that time of year again when we are all back at our desks full of enthusiasm (well some of us are) and ready to take on the challenges of 2008. The biggest challenge facing the UK pharmaceutical industry is probably how best to develop our sales and marketing strategies to show a good ROI in an ever changing NHS environment.

Last year saw great anticipation, excitement and discussion about e-marketing, with many companies starting to invest in basic activities such as e-detailing and Pfizer making the great leap forward in developing a partnership with SERMO, the US medical social network. We also saw a proliferation of companies offering e-detailing, e-CME and pod and web cast services.

At present we are in the early stages e-marketing, but as the web is likely to become much more important to your customers than it is today, so it will be necessary to integrate the channel into your sales and marketing activities, as the impact of traditional activities continues to be challenged.

To help you with your e-marketing here are some New Year’s resolutions that you may want to consider making.

Be prepared to change, create ways to identify and listen to marketing signals and look at how you can adapt and respond
Be flexible and experiment, you need to explore the diversity of online and what it could do for your brand
Expand the richness of the information about your disease area/brand on the web to get the information to customers at the very moment they are looking for it
Think broader than e-detailing, many traditional media outlets such as Hospital Doctor and Pulse magazine have made the transition online, how can you capitalise on this?
Make the most of your traditional marketing activities by including podcasts and webcasts in your programmes to expand your target reach
GPs and hospital doctors are not the only people online. Nurses, pharmacists and patients are all using the channel
Open your mind to the value of social networking by:
- Developing your own network
- Participating directly within a community
- Sponsoring or being associated with specific communities
- Supply communities with the information or services they request
- Observe, listen and learn from how participants discuss and behave in relation to your brand

Call Onyx Health to learn more how we can help you develop your e-marketing strategies and programmes in 2008

All Change – The End of an Era

Onyx Health — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 12:43:09 +0000

So that is it, after 26 years of publishing weekly magazines for GPs and hospital doctors, Elsevier is closing down two of its iconic brands, Doctor and Hospital Doctor, in the New Year. The reason they give for the closure is simply due to a lack of advertising revenue, and while their competitor brands have been quick to suggest the closure is some sort for failure by the publishers, we must not forget that the company has only recently launched www.doctorportal.co.uk which will continue to be the beacon for the brands. So, rather being seen as a failure, perhaps the publishers at Elsevier should be applauded for responding quickly to on-line market forces.

2007 has been a difficult year for all pharmaceutical marketing companies, as traditional sales and marketing activities have begun to show less and less return on investment. Some companies have dabbled in e-marketing, but the majority are still sitting on the fence in some sort of marketing void.

As individuals we have all made changes in the way we access information, make purchasing decisions, and communicate with our friends. Even the news is reported in a completely different way. We regularly see viewers sending in virtually real-time mobile phone video clips and interacting with presenters by commenting on particular stories. Whilst many consumer brands have embraced these new opportunities, pharma have been slow to identify possible marketing opportunities.

2008 will probably be a transitional period for us all involved in pharmaceutical sales and marketing. Everyone seems to be waiting for the big “e” breakthrough, the idea that is going to WOW us all and significantly change a company’s sales line. In truth there is probably nothing groundbreaking out there. We are already seeing more and more companies setting up me-toos of OnMedica and Doctors.net. There will certainly be a great push from publishers to maximise their on-line offerings, e-detailing may become a market entry criteria and I am sure we will see a Sermo type social medical network launching in the UK.

But what is truly needed is for more companies to start dipping their toes in the e-marketing water by looking strategically at how to engage on-line with all of the various customers. We need to reinvigorate our plans and put lots of energy back into the market. Whilst it may be the “end of an era” for Hospital Doctor and Doctor, there is a brand new era out there just waiting for pharma companies to get involved.