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Leveraging Data Science To Deliver Unique Patient-experience

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“Changes in consumer behavior, many of which were accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, are fueling a redesign of the health ecosystem.” This finding was revealed by a recent study of the PwC’s Health Research Institute (HRI). The research provided insights about how and why specific groups of consumers used health services during the pandemic – from mental health and telehealth to in-home care and other non-traditional care sites.

The study also captured ‘their willingness to use them again in the future,’ and suggested, those pharma companies that closely monitor these consumer signals and design, accordingly, will likely emerge as more customer centric, as the pandemic wanes.

From this perspective, effective application of data science for creating a unique patient experience by listening to patient voice, is now an imperative for pharma players. Which is why, this approach is nowa key business success ingredient in the changing paradigm. It helps offering a holistic disease treatment solution to patients searching for an effective and affordable disease treatment process.

This article will, therefore, focus on leveraging data science for strategic use of Real-World Evidence (RWE) based on Real World Data (RWD) – on how customer characteristics and behavior impact health outcomes. This initiative is fast becoming a key driver to excel in contemporary pharma business.

Strategic use of RWD/RWE increasing in pharma marketing plans:

RWE, as the name suggests, is the evidence derived from RWD. These are collected outside of clinical trials from various sources, such as, patients and HCP surveys on treatment outcomes, electronic health records wherever available, Wearable Health Devices (WHD), insurance claims, data from connected healthcare records, custom study and many others.

The McKinsey & Company article in this area, published on July 23, 2020, also indicated so. Although, some leading pharma companies have already been using RWE. However, recent progress in digital and advanced analytics allows it to be employed in new ways to deliver impact at scale, the article highlighted. When used by hands-on- professionals of repute in this area, RWE can help pharma marketers understand how patient characteristics and behaviors affect health outcomes.

The research paper on how Biopharmaceutical companies are embedding real-world data and evidence use across the enterprise, published in Deloitte Insights on September 21, 2022, presented an interesting contemporary example. It wrote: ‘During the COVID-19 pandemic, RWD/E played a key role in enabling Biopharma companies to innovate and bring novel vaccines and therapies against this highly contagious disease to market in record time.’id-19,

The approach gained momentum during the Covid-19 pandemic:

The above research study of Deloitte brought out this fact succinctly. It found; unprecedented challenge posed by COVID-19 pandemic prompted several drug companies to leverage RWD/E to innovate faster than ever before. More than half of the companies surveyed by Deloitte used RWD/E to understand the incidence and severity of COVID-19 and its variants for vaccine and drug development.’

The survey found: ‘Many vaccine developers, such as Johnson & Johnson analyzed RWD to predict COVID-19 hotspots across geographies to optimize site selection and collect data from diverse racial and ethnic groups.’ Besides, RWE also played a critical role for these companies in understanding vaccine effectiveness across demographics such as age, gender, race, and ethnicity and determining the need for boosters.

Improves patient experience for business excellence:

A systematic and ongoing tracking and analysis of well-identified RWD, by pharma marketing analytics professionals, can help in-depth understanding of changing pharma customer characteristics and behavior, more precisely. Such initiatives include patients, HCPs, hospitals and even the policy makers. Several drug majors have adopted this practice, immediately after absorbing the initial shock of unprecedented disruptions during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Similarly, RWD can help map the exact available space for demand where a brand is being used and potential competitive value-space for its further demand extension – based on real time customer behavior with changing characteristics. To shape customer journeys, such findings may immensely help while strategizing for more targeted content delivery, with sharper segmentation and brand positioning.

Therefore, finding such gaps in various areas of patients’ journey – in their search for an effective and affordable treatment, and appropriately filling these up with brand value delivery is critical. This will help improve patient experience manifold, accelerating business excellence, in tandem.

A recent paper titled, ‘Maximizing your role as a newly appointed real-world evidence leader,’ published by the ZS on March 23, 2022, made similar observations, as above. The study reiterated that patient-generated insights obtained through RWE, are uniquely capable of adding value at different stages of a pharma brand’s life cycle. Or, throughout a patient’s journey on the care pathway of the value delivery system. It concluded: “Carrying out a successful RWE study is a fine balancing act – but its inconveniences and risks are almost certain to be outweighed by the eventual benefits.”

Increasingly used to gain actionable insights to improve patient experience:

In the contemporary market dynamics – driven by changing customer characteristics and behavior, several pharma companies are now effectively combining and analyzing RWD to retrieve RWE. The objective is to gain actionable insights for effective customer engagement for better patient outcomes, to drive business growth. According to a recent podcast by PwC on using data to shape customer journey, the process includes the following:

  • Focusing on the value and outcomes of treatment protocols and less about specific products.
  • Gaining a better understanding of pharma customers and what drives their behavior.
  • Reaching beyond the barrier in driving differentiation amongst competitors.

Conclusion:   

The Forbes article on the Data Science trend in 2022, published on October 04, 2021, aptly epitomized its relevance in today’s business, including pharma industry. It articulated, data science encompasses the practical application of ideas generated by credible and meaningful data from various relevant sources, predictive analytics, and artificial intelligence. Our ability to use such data to our advantage across wide areas in business, would help deliver increasingly worthwhile, valuable, and enjoyable patient experience. 

The article also underscored: ‘If data is the oil of the information age and Machine Learning (ML) is the engine, then data science is the digital domain’s equivalent of the laws of physics that cause combustion to occur and pistons to move.’

Thus, I reckon, both intrinsic and extrinsic brand value creation process, driven by its effectiveness, would increasingly call for Real World Evidence (RWE) based on top-quality Real-World Data (RWD). This is increasingly becoming so critical for success – spanning right across, from product development, launch planning with value propositions – to launch and beyond.

The core purpose of leveraging data science in pharma is, as I see it, is effective decision making throughout the brand life cycle, to deliver a unique patient experience in patients’ journey – with better treatment outcomes.

By: Tapan J. Ray      

Disclaimer: The views/opinions expressed in this article are entirely my own, written in my individual and personal capacity. I do not represent any other person or organization for this opinion.

Pharma Leadership Challenge In Post Covid Paradigm

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Bringing a long cherished relief to many, on September 15, 2022, the World Health Organization said, ‘we can see the Finish Line’ for the COVID-19 pandemic but it’s not over yet’. As I see today, several things are changing pretty fast in this scenario. Such as, not so long ago – on September 27, 2021, the same global health organization predicted differently: ‘World Will Live with COVID for Foreseeable Future.’ It further highlighted “It is dangerous to assume that omicron will be the last variant, or that we are in the endgame. On the contrary, globally the conditions are ideal for more variants to emerge.” The Wall Street Journal also reported on September 18, 2022 that the US President Joe Biden too  feels, ‘Covid-19 pandemic was over’ in the United States.

Be that as it may, I reckon, the world is not going to replicate to the pre-Covid mode of working, any longer. The Covid-19 pandemic has clearly made some impactful changes in the most work scenario, across the world. This has been revealed by several recent studies. With this perspective, in this article, I shall dwell on the challenges that the pharma leadership teams will face or are already facing, as the world shifts towards the post Covid paradigm.

Four critical areas for change:

To illustrate this point, I will focus on just three critical areas for pharma players, as follows:

  1. No going back to the pre-Covid mode of working
  2. Create a more employee focused organization for future success
  3. Determine the right size of digitally savvy field force in the new paradigm 
  4. Increase online share of voice in represented therapy areas and identify pharma’s digital world opinion leaders.

Why no going back to the pre-Covid mode of working:

With the onslaught of the Covid-19 pandemic on people’s lives and livelihoods fast receding, the need for some critical changes in several areas of pharma business, is now being felt by some forward looking astute pharma leadership teams. Recent studies, such as, the Gartner paper of June 16, 2022, among others, vindicate ushering-in some of the following changes in workplaces:

  • Ongoing changes in the way people work have transformed employees’ relationship, and their expectations of work.
  • Hybrid work could be a great opportunity, particularly for diverse talent..

Another article in this regard, published in the Harvard Business Review on January 13, 2022, capture 11 trends that will shape the work, in general, from 2022 and beyond. When I put some of these in the pharma space, it may include the following:

  • Employee turnover will continue to increase, as hybrid and remote work becomes the norm for knowledge workers in pharma companies.
  • Many repeated managerial tasks at various levels, will be automated, creating greater space for them to build more human relationships with their peer group and direct reports.
  • The tools used for working remotely are also being used to measure and improve employee performance on an ongoing basis.
  • The complexity of managing a hybrid workforce may drive some employers to evaluate a ‘return to the office’ with its pitfalls and benefits.

Thus, creating an employee focused organization becomes critical.

Creating an employee focused organization will be critical:

In the current scenario, the importance of being able to afford employees maximum flexibility, adapting and flexing to their individual circumstances and needs, is increasing manifold. This, has also come out very clearly in a number of studies, including one paper of the Healthcare Consulting Group (HCG), as reported on July 25, 2022.

Thus, nurturing employees’ desire for personal and professional growth, besides motivating them with a strong sense of purpose to their work, has become foundational to being an attractive workplace, more than ever before.

Is the pharma industry right-sizing the digitally savvy field force?

One can pick up several signals in this direction from what is happening, as the industry is opening-up with a rapidly declining onslaught of the Covid-19 pandemic. Various studies vindicate the intent of field staff reduction by the pharma industry. Today’s environment requires a digitally savvy field force of optimal size, which may vary from company to company.

For example, the article published in the Reuters Events Pharma on May 5, 2022, in this regard, elucidated “While Reuters Events Pharma’s own recent polling of the industry suggests a moderate reduction in numbers over the next couple of years, others see signs of more dramatic change.”

Many pharma players are now pondering – during Covid pandemic when companies were making so many less face-to-face calls, sales were OK. Now, when the intensity of the pandemic is receding, do they need the previous sales force numbers to make more such calls?

The general feeling appears to be that the old practices aren’t as productive as they were before, in the changing scenario. Thus, the paper underscored: ‘So with the largest players are already thinking about how to do more with fewer boots on the ground, how do they go about it?’ It concluded by saying: ‘No one is saying it is easy then, but the imperative for change is clear.”

Pharma customers’ online engagement is increasing with a low share of voice of companies:

This is yet another critical area of change where drug industry needs to strengthen its online voice. Several studies indicate that even a tiny part of most pharma companies’ online conversation about their represented disease and therapy areas doesn’t get captured in Google search. For example, yet another recent paper on this subject, published in the Reuters Events Pharma on July 05, 2022, confirms this point.

The article highlights: ‘Around 80% of patients Google for a recommended or newly prescribed medication. And doctors routinely use search engines too – to stay up to date, to verify assumptions and so on. Indeed, it may be no exaggeration to say that the answers found online are possibly the biggest influence on patients and HCPs today. Understanding their real-world digital information experience is, therefore, critical to identifying the content influencing their behavior.’

In today’s world, what these customers see and hear via search engines may shock many, the author emphasized. The study also reveals, despite many pharma companies’ investment in evidence-based, balanced, and accessible content designed for HCPs and patients, this is often buried far out of reach from the billion-plus health-related questions being asked of Google each day. ‘Pharma’s online voice often simply isn’t cutting through,’ it concluded.

What needs to be addressed soon in this area:

Each pharma marketer may wish to ascertain through data-based studies, which voices are dominating these conversations. And also, the nature and quality of the company’s own digital conversation and its share of voice. This is, besides getting to know who the digital opinion leaders are. Then, the task will be to find out ways to work with these people and share the company releases with them, requesting for their inputs, if any.

Conclusion:

The experience of the Covid pandemic and lockdowns has changed work patterns in many industries from what those were in the pre-Covid days. The drug industry is no exception. According to recent studies, two out of every five workers have either switched jobs or are actively looking for another that will fit into their working needs better, and with some remote work. This trend, being a common expectation, is gaining ground.

Thus, making an employee centric organization is now more important than ever before. Bringing together the best of remote working and office locations, as centers of excellence for team building, learning and innovation, is emerging as a central part of the pharma leadership challenge, as an HCG study, reportedly, also points out. It is generally believed that employees ‘who feel connected to purpose at work are more productive and more likely to stay.’ In tandem, pharma leadership teams also would require leaving a lasting impact on everyone’s work, which will be more tangible to them.

Alongside, as several contemporary studies indicate, and I also wrote in this blog on April 29, 2019 – ‘Adopt A Hybrid Business Model For Better Sales – Not A large Field Force,’ each company’s field force number also require a fresh look now with a focus on digitally savvy individuals. Another reason being pharma customers’ online engagement is increasing fast where most companies have a very low share of voice, as the search engine reveals. Consequently, identifying, partnering and in-depthunderstanding of key digital opinion leaders has become critical in creating a digital content that will influence the customer behavior. As reported on September 26, 2022, pharma major Sanofi, apparently has taken a major step in this direction.

From this perspective, it appears that the pharma leadership teams have a task cut out for them to effectively respond to the challenges of change in the post Covid paradigm – in search of pharma business excellence.

By: Tapan J. Ray     

Disclaimer: The views/opinions expressed in this article are entirely my own, written in my individual and personal capacity. I do not represent any other person or organization for this opinion.

Impact of The Cost of Pharma Marketing Failure On Patients

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‘About half of all products launched over the past 15 years have underperformed pre-launch consensus forecasts by more than 20%.’ It’s one of the findings of a recent study by L.E.K. Consulting, going back to 2004. This number is besides the cost of failure while discovering a successful New Molecular Entity.

Adding this to the cost of the product innovation and development, clinical trials and other regulatory expenses, the wasteful expenditure becomes mind boggling – for any unsatisfactory launch performance. In such a situation, the probability of creating newer blockbuster therapies is not getting any easier.

As is believed by many – and vindicated by several studies, new drug marketing cost is more than its R&D cost. Which is why, ensuring success of a new drug launch is critical to fund new drug innovation – on an ongoing basis. Consequently, leadership focus on high ‘launch success’ rate is so important – as the good old saying goes – ‘well begun half done.’

In addition, prudent optimization of the success rate of new products may also help the company avoid irresponsible pricing, while improving the profit margin. In this article, I shall deliberate on the impact of the cost of marketing failure on patients, in general. Alongside, the avoidable ‘soft ground’ that marketers may wish to avoid while delivering unmet value to patients.

Big Pharma’s Sales and Marketing spend is more than R&D:

According to another recent study of October 27, 2021, ‘in most cases, more of the dollars spent by drug manufacturers go toward selling and marketing costs than toward research and development (R&D) for new treatments, cures, or expanded indications and uses of existing drugs.’ For example, as the paper highlights:

  • AbbVie, which manufactures branded drugs like Humira, spent $11 billion in sales and marketing in 2020, compared with $8 billion on R&D.
  • Bayer, which manufactures branded drugs like Xarelto (codeveloped with Johnson & Johnson) and Eylea, spent $18 billion in sales and marketing, compared to $8 billion on R&D.
  • Johnson & Johnson, which manufactures branded drugs like Xarelto (codeveloped with Bayer) and Stelara, spent $22 billion on sales and marketing, compared to $12 billion on research and development.

Therefore, just as R&D expenses have to be made more productive, so are the sales & marketing expenses, where the expenditure towards new product launches is a critical component.

Why a successful new product launch is important:

An analysis by Deloitte in this area, published on March 26, 2020, found that most new drugs continue with the revenue trajectory set at launch. It said, about 70 percent of products that miss expectations at launch continue doing so in subsequent years, and around 80 percent of products that meet or beat expectations continue to do so afterward. Thus, launch success of a new product is very important, both for the organizations and the patients.

A successful new product launch helps both the company and patients:

Correctly assessing and leveraging full commercial potential of a new product through its effective launch helps both the patients and the company. This subject was discussed in a recent article, published in the Fierce Pharma on October 25, 2021, in the context of many drug launch disasters. The areas of benefits, I reckon, include the following:

  • Patients’ unmet needs are met at a reasonable price
  • Manufacturer can recoup its research and development costs.
  • Fund future drug discoveries.
  • Satisfy investors with handsome returns.
  • Creating a sound brand performance base – as a strong launch is arguably the most critical step in a new drug’s lifecycle.

New product launch failure is across the disease areas – from Big Pharma to Startups:

As the above December 18, 2020, study by L.E.K. Consulting points out that new products’ launch failure is taking place across the disease areas. These include,  Oncology, immunology, infectious disease, ophthalmology, blood disorders, brain diseases, and cardiovascular and metabolic disease. Similarly, the companies responsible for such failure span across global pharma majors to biotech startups.

Why many companies are failing in this process:

To help ascertain the depth of this issue, let me start with the key objective of a new product launch, which is effectively delivering the holistic value of the brand which consumers would appreciate. Several papers also acknowledge, to succeed in this area, pharma players need to prepare their data-based launch plan with cerebral power and ensure that the strategy is working and is being executed flawlessly.

A large number of studies find, ‘many companies fail in this process, due to a combination of factors.’ Some of these are uncontrollable, but many of which are very much within a marketer’s control.

Examples of uncontrollable and controllable variables:

Uncontrollable factors include post marketing approval drug safety issues. Reports indicate, ‘One-Third Of New Drugs Had Safety Problems After FDA Approval.’ This is being reported even in recent times, like, ‘new safety signals that cropped up after the approvals of Novartis’ eye drug Beovu  and Sanofi’s dengue vaccine Dengvaxia.’

Whereas, controllable factors include, poor product differentiation and other management missteps, besides ‘limited market access, poor understanding of market needs or misjudgment of competitive threats.’ For example, poor product differentiation and other management missteps were, reportedly, ‘the cause of trouble for Clovis Oncology’s Rubraca in the PARP inhibitor space, and Merck & Co. and Pfizer’s Steglatro in the SGLT2 field.

Key success ingredients to focus on:

Since long, various research, including one by Bain & Co dated October 2017, has highlighted that over 50% of new product launches are underperforming. This situation can’t, in any way, be accepted as a ‘thumb rule’ by pharma marketers, any longer.  Mainly because: ‘When a drug misses its launch projections, there’s a high likelihood that it will never recover that revenue,’ as their study findings underscore. From this perspective, listed below are some of the basic areas to focus on for greater launch success, as I have experienced:

  • Early launch planning – well before the regulatory approval for new products.
  • Data-based and well-tested target-audience identification, the target markets’ selection and key opinion leaders need to be selected for greater focus in effective stakeholder engagement.
  • Creating differentiated value-propositions that addresses targeted patients’ unmet needs, and, in tandem, offers scope for commensurate premium pricing, are vital.
  • Product pricing should be based on quality of value delivery to patients that they can perceive and would acknowledge. Misvaluing a brand, and just focusing on those who can pay, may attract negative publicity, creating a key barrier to success.
  • Current competition, their ongoing counter strategy, new market competitors and other launch challenges need to be carefully mapped, for strategic fine tuning or course correction, in time, wherever and whenever needed.
  • Execution of the launch plan must be accomplished with military precision, as it were.

Conclusion:

As the above Bain & Co paper articulated, ‘The most consistently undervalued factor contributing to a successful launch is the way leadership teams organize and the manage the launch process.’

It’s again not too difficult to understand that the net accountability of the cost of marketing failure, which is a major contributing factor to stifle the R&D funding, in many cases, squarely falls on pharma leadership.

Instead of taking corrective action in this critical area, most of them choose the easy path – increase new product pricing to achieve targeted revenue from a smaller unit sale of the brand. The net impact of which is on patients due to access barrier caused by high prices.

Such products, without clearly differentiated value propositions that patients would recognize, would further increase sales and marketing costs, and could even result in marketing malpractices. Under this backdrop, serious and thoughtful attempt in making all new product launches successful money spinners, as respective brands will merit, may help the pharma leadership to create a win-win situation for both the company and patients.

By: Tapan J. Ray  

Disclaimer: The views/opinions expressed in this article are entirely my own, written in my individual and personal capacity. I do not represent any other person or organization for this opinion.

 

Big Pharma Fails Avoiding Drug Price ‘Control’? Even In The US? Why?

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It ultimately happened – even in the United States, as the US President signed a bill on August 16, 2022 that aims to reduce healthcare costs, alongside fighting climate change, besides raising taxes on the rich. This new law was enacted, despite powerful lobbying and the vehement opposition of big pharma associations and that too in their home turf.

According to the Fierce Pharma report of the same day, since the current US President moved into the White House in 2020, the drug industry left no stone unturned battling to preserve pricing status-quo. It further added, the ‘pharmaceutical industry, including, PhRMA, its allies, and the nation’s largest pharmaceutical firms’ have spent more than $205 million in multi-media ads opposing ‘Medicare price negotiations’ and lobbying against efforts to lower drug prices for consumers.’

No wonder, when the bill was just introduced to the US lawmakers, big pharma’s disappointment on the bill was palpable. This gets well-captured in what the AbbVie CEO pointed out at that time. He said, ‘the legislation would force manufacturers to accept the government’s proposed price or face a harsh tax on their revenues from a given product.’ He also said: “So, it’s not a negotiation,” as stated in the bill. He further opined in his conference call: “We should just call it what it is. It’s price controls,’ which is what the lawmakers are ‘basically putting in place, if the language stays the same,’ the AbbVie chief added.

Capturing this new development in the United States, at least, in the recent past - Fierce Pharma in its August 08, 2022, issue commented: “The seemingly unstoppable pharma lobbying force has lost its charm. With the passage of a new bill, the U.S. Senate is opening the door to major drug pricing reform, leaving the drug industry licking its wounds.”

In the Eldorado of the global drug industry, this is indeed an unprecedented initiative to significantly reduce costs of many important drugs and reduce patients’ out of pocket expenses. Consequently, it has created so much of hullabaloo, across the world, for various reasons. In this article, I shall track this emerging scenario along with the message that it sends across the globe, and its possible impact on new drug innovation to meet unmet needs of patients. In India, one such area could be revisiting the price negotiation proposal for patented drugs, a government initiative that failed to take off earlier.

Would lowering prices stifle new drug innovation?

The apprehension, I reckon, that big pharma will continue to play with - price control will stifle new product innovation – adversely impacting patient interest. Notably, to many industry experts, this argument doesn’t just lack robustness, seems more a conjecture rather than the outcome of any peer- reviewed research study findings. On ewthe contrary, several highly credible and independent studies prove otherwise. Thus, let me put hereunder:

  • One – what big pharma directly and through their powerful industry associations or some financially sponsored studies are saying
  • And – what the top experts concluded from their independent analysis in this regard, as published in the globally acclaimed journals.

I leave it to my readers to evaluate the credibility of each to form their views.

Drug industry arguments supported by recent studies:

The findings of a study conducted recently, with the financial support of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), Amgen, Pfizer, Alexion, AbbVie, Genentech, and Bristol Myers Squibb, were released by PhRMA on November 23, 2021. The study was conducted by Vital Transformation. The key findings of this study highlighted: ‘Every 10% drop in the price of medicines in price-controlled EU markets was associated with a:

  • 14% decrease in total VC funding (10% early stage and 17% late stage)
  • 7% decrease in biotech patents
  • 9% decrease in biotech start-up funding relative to the US
  • An 8% increase in the delay of access to medicines.

It concluded: ‘Drug pricing controls implemented in the US would likely have an even greater impact on Biopharma KPIs given its global leadership in investment and innovation.’

Independent expert studies, published in highly reputed journals:

Around the same time as the above report, an independent study published in the Harvard Business Review (HBR) on October 01, 2021, found exactly the opposite. It categorically stated: ‘The U.S. can lower drug prices without sacrificing innovation.’

The paper summed up: ‘With Congress considering legislation to allow Medicare to use its bargaining power to negotiate lower drug prices, large pharmaceutical companies are once again waging a campaign that contends that doing so would seriously harm the development of breakthrough drugs. This is not true. Smaller companies now account for the lion’s share of such breakthroughs. The key to supporting drug innovation is to increase NIH funding of the efforts that give rise to these new companies, cut the costs, and accelerate the speed of clinical trials, and reform patent law.’

Drug pricing in the Indian context:

Prices of, especially, new drugs and the overall cost of healthcare are two major concerns – more in the developing countries like India. Responding to this need drug price control for pre-defined essential medicines are already in place in the country. More recent studies further vindicate the relevance of such regulation from the perspective of affordability of drugs for the poorer section of the society, and where out of pocket expenses are very high.

Let me quote one such paper, published on June 04, 2022, which received no outside financial support from this study, where the researchers concluded: ‘With induced demand and an inadequate competitive environment, the pharmaceutical industry fails to reduce prices. Supply-chain trade margins are very high. Hence, government intervention through price control of essential and life-saving drugs is a necessity in India.’

In this context, another question that is being raised – are there other alternatives to expand access to high-priced life-saving drugs at an affordable cost to all those who need those most? The most common alternative that floats, encourage more competition for those drugs as soon as they go off patent. Let me examine what’s big pharma players are doing in that area.

Does Big Pharma encourage increasing competition to reduce drug prices?

Another way to reduce the price of an expensive product is encouraging competition to enable market forces bring down the price. An interesting article on breaking the rule of drug pricing by pharma companies was published in the Forbes magazine on June 29, 2022. I also wrote on June 10, 2013: ‘To scale-up access to health care, especially for the marginalized population of any country, greater access to affordable generic drugs will always remain fundamental, besides improving healthcare infrastructure and its delivery mechanism.’

Thus, there should be a robust mechanism, across the world, to facilitate quick entry of cheaper generic equivalents immediately after patent expiry of the original molecule. Increasing attempts of blocking entry of generics surreptitiously by vested interests, leaves no other alternative, but price control. This is imperative, ‘as without the availability of newer generics, unmet medical needs of the most vulnerable section of the society cannot be met effectively by any country, as I wrote there.

Attempts to game the system to minimize competition continue unabated:

Even after my article, this red flag is being raised for quite some time. It will be evident from another Harvard Business Review article titled, ‘How Pharma Companies Game the System to Keep Drugs Expensive,’ published in the on April 06, 2017. Acknowledging: ‘Drug development is risky and expensive, thanks to the long testing and approval process,’ the author concluded from their study – ‘But, increasingly, makers of branded drugs are using a variety of tactics to extend their exclusive rights,’ enabling them to maintain high drug prices for much longer time.

More recently, the above Forbes article of June 10, 2022 also highlighted, ‘even the most generous patent protections come to an end and companies must face the potential for generic competition. That’s when major drug manufacturers shift tactics from influencing policy to crushing the competition.’ There are several legal and semi-legal approaches that big pharma players adapt to game the system and maintain pricing monopoly. Let’s recap it with just three of these examples:

- ‘Patent Thicket: Delaying entry of lower price off-patent molecule through a Patent Thicket. This involves creation of ‘a dense web of overlapping intellectual property rights that a generic pharma company must hack its way through in order to actually commercialize new technology of a drug molecule,’ even after the original patent expires. For example, AbbVie’s Humira, the world’s best-selling drug for a long time. I also discussed this issue in my blog over three years ago – on April 22, 2019.

- ‘Pay-for-delay deals’:  I discussed this issue in this blog on June 19, 2013. Moreover, the above Forbes article of June 29, 2022, also underscored this tactic. It explained that this is a deal in which drug companies agree not to compete for a set amount of time to maintain high prices of their brand-name drugs. The article, published in Bloomberg Law on February 20, 2020, captures it nicely.

- Authorized generics: As many would know, law permits six months of exclusivity to the first generic version of an off-patent new molecule coming into the market. Interestingly, just before patent expiry of an innovative drug, several drug makers roll out their own generics to stifle competition. Although, they keep different names for the generic versions, but pricing remains almost similar. Such a practice obliviously delays the entry of cheaper generics, at least by six months.

In this scenario, the new drug prices continue racing north. Something was to be surely done – for patients’ sake, as many believe, at least, where it all started – the US.

New drug prices are highest in 2022:

As reported by Reuters on August 16, 2022:

  • Eight of 13 drugs launched in 2022 priced over $200,000 per year
  • Median annual price for new U.S. drugs this year is $257,000
  • Some drugmakers disclose less information on pricing

Despite this, as reported on August 15, 2022: ‘The main U.S. drug lobby has said it will push back against the legislation, which includes policies that drug makers have opposed for decades.’

Conclusion:

The significance of the above development in the US healthcare scenario, was aptly summed-up by the US House Speaker, as she said: “If you are sitting at your kitchen table and wonder how you’re going to pay the bills – your health care bills, your prescription drug bills – this bill is for you.” For the first time in the US – the champion of champions of free-drug pricing market, will negotiate the drug price with their manufacturers to become patient -centric.

The reverberations of this difficult decision, especially on new drug prices, are expected to prompt the need for price negotiation or price control, primarily for expanding access to new drugs for a larger number of patients. This deserves to be a focus area for the Government, including India. Moreover, the August 18, 2022, media report also suggests that the top court of India may now encourage the Government to investigate, report and take remedial action on drug industry malpractices.

Finally, it’s worth noting that over a decade ago, international media widely reported -  ‘India considering price controls for patented drugs.’ Its objective was to address the aggressive new drug pricing trend in the country. Accordingly, the price negotiation proposal for patented drugs was notified by the Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP) in 2007. The constituted Committee submitted a report, as well, on February 21, 2013. But it did not take off as on date. Many apprehend, this is due to intensive and ongoing lobbying by big pharma, just as what happened in the US. Nevertheless, the question that surfaces – will the above new drug law in the largest pharma market in the world encourage the DoP to revisit price negotiation for patented drugs - to make modern drugs affordable to a larger patient population in India – now?

By: Tapan J. Ray

Disclaimer: The views/opinions expressed in this article are entirely my own, written in my individual and personal capacity. I do not represent any other person or organization for this opinion.

Winning By Creating A Strong Pharma ‘Brand Identity’

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Since the beginning of 2022, several top global pharma majors are exhibiting their renewed focus on creating a new corporate ‘brand-identity’. Its key purpose is to chart a new strategic frontier where their brands will stand out in the highly competitive pharma market – gaining a greater share of mind of the customers.

This happened recently with GSK, as reported on June 9, 2022. Prior to this announcement, on February 03, 2022, the French pharma major Sanofi, reportedly, undertook a similar change to refocus on a new brand-identity. It began with a new simplified logo of plain “Sanofi,” apparently, signifying a nod to the tech world.

Against the above backdrop, in this article, I shall deliberate in the process of winning a marketing warfare by creating, and effectively leveraging a strong pharma corporate ‘Brand Identity.’

Instead of starting this discussion with what changes the above companies have made and why, let me try to be on the same page on two important facets in this area. First – what is generally considered as critical ingredients of a ‘brand identity.’ And then – why initiatives of creating a targeted and stronger pharma ‘brand identity’ are gaining increasing importance to pharma marketers of many top companies, across the word.

Some critical ingredients of brand identity:

As defined by the April 11, 2022, issue of Investopedia: ‘Brand identity’ reflects the intent behind branding with the visible elements of a brand, such as color, design, and logo, that identify and distinguish the brand in customers’ minds.

The ‘brand identity’, therefore, encompasses, appropriate brand name selection, designing a logo commensurate to the company intent, well-thought through color selection, use of shapes and other visual elements that will facilitate brand promotion. Above all, employees who are at touch points of patients’ disease treatment process need to be thoroughly explained and appropriately trained to effectively leverage the purpose of change.

‘Brand identity’ is different from ‘brand image’:

It’s important to note that ‘brand identity’ is quite different from ‘brand image.’ While ‘brand identity’ relates to the intent behind the branding – creating and cultivating a strong ‘brand image’ in the customers’ mind – is its purpose. ‘Brand image’ educates customers about both intrinsic and extrinsic values that the brand offers through ‘Omnichannel’ targeted communication. This process helps create customer loyalty.

Increasing importance of stronger pharma ‘brand identity’:

A new trend alerted many pharma leaders, as brand new Covid-19 vaccines started being available to the public. For a vast majority of the population, across the world, vaccines were construed to be the only savior against the unprecedented life and livelihood disruptor – Covid-19 pandemic.

Interestingly, right from the regulatory approval of the first Covid-19 vaccine, although, all such vaccines had brand names – general public, doctors, media, even the World Health Organization, or Governments, started calling vaccines, predominantly, by company names. For example. AstraZeneca Covid Vaccine, Pfizer Covid vaccine, Moderna Covid vaccine, J&J Covid vaccine, and so on. Even the Corporate head honchos of respective vaccines and Covid related drugs, came to the fore with corporate branding to establish a meaningful relationship with the customers. Accordingly, in the marketplace, establishing a strong corporate brand identity has assumed greater importance, more than before. 

Studies vindicate this point:

That a strong corporate ‘brand identity’ helps create a differentiable product image, has been captured in several studies. For example, a study published by PharmaVoice on August 28, 2014, came to an interesting conclusion. After analyzing a situation in which multiple pharmaceutical companies developed a similar oncology product for the same indication, it said: “All things about the product being identical, including the price, we asked which company’s product would the oncologists recommend. The companies with the best company brand images scored highest, proving that company image alone would have a significant impact on recommendation behaviors.”

Would pharma’s strong corporate ‘brand identity’ impact the bottom line?

Several independent studies have also proven the same. For example, a mere 5% improvement in the strength of the company’s brand image and reputation could be expected to produce, on average, a 1.5% uplift in the share price over the year, translating to about a $550 million increase in market capitalization.

Acknowledging this point the above paper underscores: “Thus, any pharmaceutical company that wants to succeed and sustain a healthy, long-term competitive advantage, create differentiation in the short term, and insulate itself from weather storms of clinical disappointment, which invariably occur in pharma, would want to invest in corporate brand identity development that includes all drivers of reputation and relationship.”

It is happening more, especially in post Covid-19 pandemic period:

Let me now go back to where I started from. I started by saying: ‘Since the beginning of 2022, several top global pharma majors are articulating their renewed focus on brand-identity.’ I also wrote about deliberating what changes, especially the two pharma majors have made to strengthen their corporate ‘brand identity’ – for different reasons.

Let me start with GSK:

According to June 09, 2022, edition of the ENDPOINT NEWS, GSK – as it transforms into a pure Biopharma company – unveiled the reinvented company and the corporate brand to its employees first – on June 08, 2022, with the intent to bring everyone in the global company together.

The Company says, it’s about a way more than a logo. The Biopharma-only GSK believes, it has adopted a new purpose – “to unite science, technology and talent to get ahead of the disease together,” besides a new strategy, ambitions, and revamped ‘brand identity’.

The new corporate ‘brand identity’ of the corporation is a blend of familiar and modern of its vibrant orange brand color that remains. Now it’s a three letter-only corporate name - all uppercase and standalone - reimagined in a curvy contemporary logo. The new GSK logo “takes inspiration from the visual language of biosciences, genomic sequencing and data analysis, but – still feels warm and human,” as explained on the GSK website.

According to the Company, the new GSK’s ambitions also include people. It’s the final goal in its three debuted ambitions – impact the health of 2.5 billion people in the next 10 years, achieve specific competitive growth goals and make sure employees are thriving.

Coming to Sanofi:

According to Fierce Pharma of February 03, 2022, Sanofi also undertook a similar change at the start of the year. Ditching the Pasteur and Genzyme of old, the Company decided to go for a new ‘brand-identity.’ It rebranded itself as plain “Sanofi.” That switch also came with a new, simplified logo with a nod to the tech world.

According to Sanofi Press Release of February 03, 2022, the French pharma major’s ‘rebranding centers on a clean, lower case new logo. ‘The new logo is a representation of Sanofi’s new purpose and ambition, which is inspired by the simple and motion-oriented codes of the tech industry. The two purple dots embody the scientific journey between a starting point – the curiosity of questioning the status-quo and wondering “what if?” – and a finish line – the eureka moment where innovative solutions are unlocked to impact people’s lives’, it explained.

“With our new brand, we have sought to provide our people, our partners, patients and healthcare professionals with a clear and strong understanding of who we are and what we are set to achieve,” Sanofi highlighted.

The Company further reiterated: “Sanofi’s attitude is humble, authentic—and a little bit unconventional, too. We believe that our new brand and logo carve out a unique space in the healthcare industry that perfectly represents our new purpose to chase the miracles of science to improve people’s lives.”

Conclusion:

The journey of creating corporate pharma ‘brand identity’ initiatives is highly cerebral and originates from the top echelon of pharma management team.  The key objective of creating a strong corporate ‘brand identity’ is to ensure that the brand effectively depicts its own unique stance to the customers and differentiate itself from competitors in the marketplace.

I explained above, this process encompasses all branding activities of the company. The aim is to make the company to be perceived in a particular way by the target audience. Which is why, creating a strong corporate ‘brand identity’ is critical in shaping a unique corporate image, especially in generics dominated Indian pharma industry.

It goes without saying, such differentiation, in turn, helps expanding a loyal customer-base for performance excellence, more in the post Covid pandemic environment of India. Even, global pharma majors, are recreating their new brand-identity, for various reasons, and trying to leverage it effectively, to carve out a greater share of mind of more and more customers.

By: Tapan J. Ray

Disclaimer: The views/opinions expressed in this article are entirely my own, written in my individual and personal capacity. I do not represent any other person or organization for this opinion.

 

Tame Physicians’ Digital Fatigue With Brand Message Overdose

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“The COVID-19 pandemic forced pharmaceutical companies adopt digital-first marketing models when in-person strategies were inaccessible, but health care practitioners report they’re becoming increasingly inundated with information and the shift to virtual marketing isn’t meeting their needs.” This was the finding of a new research of Indegene, published on March 02, 2022. The survey covers around 1,000 physicians from the U.S., Europe, China, and India.

Currently, many HCPs construe that pharma’s increasing frequency of digital outreach – involving several digital channels and various touch points, primarily to push product-related promotional information, is excessive. Continuity of such feelings could be counterproductive to the desired intent of drug companies.

Therefore, the point that surfaces: Is the digital marketing drive of many pharma marketers, even when the Covid pandemic is in a waning phase, ‘overwhelming’ some Key Opinion Leaders (KOL)? More important is to fathom, how to address it? Today’s article will focus on this emerging issue. Let me begin with a few other key findings of this paper.

Some other key findings of the survey:

Some of the major findings of the above survey include:

  • Digital marketing channels for HCPs most commonly include webinars, social media outreach, emails and text messaging from reps and self-directed web and remote detailing.
  • While HCPs are becoming more familiar with digital technologies, 62% of them feel ‘overwhelmed’ by product-related promotional content they receive from pharma companies through various virtual channels.
  • 70% feel that drug companies are out of touch with their information needs and expectations from new drugs, besides other products and services.
  • 63% HCPs expect pharma companies to share only relevant content with them – over channels of their preferences, and at a time of their convenience, to make the interactions more insightful.

At this point, let us also have a glance at the findings of other recent surveys, as well, in this space.

Other surveys also point in the same direction:

Yes, other surveys also vindicate this point. For example,

A. Just prior to the above study, on December 07, 2021, Accenture published the findings of their own study in this regard, which includes the following:

  • 65% of HCPs feel that several pharma companies have “spammed” them with digital content as the COVID-19 pandemic went through several waves.
  • The firms need to do more to better understand and meet HCP expectations (56%) and their patients (60%) due to COVID-19.
  • When pharma companies do more, 80% of HCPs would be twice as likely to meet the pharma reps with more time and attention.
  • Almost half of the HCPs surveyed (46%) prefer a mix of in-person and virtual meetings focused on the needs of their patients, as the COVID-19 pandemic ends.

B. Another study on this subject was published in PLOS ONE, on April 16, 2021. This study focused on pharma Webinars. As many will be aware, Webinars comprised a major avenue for customer engagement during COVID-19 – creating initial general satisfaction among physicians.

This, in turn, led to an increase in webinar usage in 2020 compared to the same period in 2019, with more than 300% in one study and up to 3250% in another. Which is why, despite the initial satisfaction – over a period, most physicians ‘felt overwhelmed with the number and frequency of webinars.’

Hence, customer satisfaction being crucial in any engagement process, Webinars may now be used with a purpose to complement traditional in-person methods, rather than replacement, study concluded.

What exactly doctors want to know in the new normal?

Against the above new backdrop – the issue is, how can pharma marketers engage the HCPs without overwhelming them, mostly with continuous, too frequent and wave after wave digital contents. This point was addressed in a Fierce Pharma article, published on February 16, 2022. It quoted some doctors saying, such as:

  • “If I’m a [high prescriber], great, remind me about efficacy.”
  • “But I also want to know who’s the right patient for this drug.”
  • “I want to know what access is like.”
  • “What types of patient savings programs are available?”
  • How can I support my patient, so they stay on the drug—because I believe in it.”
  • “If I’m a non-writer, I want to know how the mechanism of action is different?” “How does this drug show up in the guidelines?”
  • “Is there head-to-head data versus another drug?”

Reps digital training demands a fresh focus:

Educating or updating doctors through Continuing Medical Education (CME) programs is an ongoing process for drugmakers. It remained so with remote digital channels during the pandemic, as well. Whereas, selecting digitally savvy reps, training and helping them to be “flexible and efficient” in using digital channels and content, based on HCP preferences – demands a fresh focus.

As some of the above studies also emphasized that significantly reducing the number of reps because of wider use of remote digital platforms, may not be advisable at this juncture. This is despite some companies are now doing it – both globally and locally. For example, on January 12, 2022, Reuters reported: ‘Pfizer to cut U.S. sales staff, as meetings with healthcare providers move to virtual.’

On the contrary, I reckon, most reps will need fresh training to ‘go beyond the product script, particularly if a given doctor has seen plenty of digital product info already.’ The same paper further suggests: “Reps should focus on conversations that make the interactions insightful – and avoid driving product information fatigue.” 

Conclusion:

With the intensity of Covid-19 pandemic subsiding, many HCPs feel that they’re getting too much digital content from pharma companies. While they aren’t totally averse to digital communication, several of them expressed by being increasingly “spammed” as the time progressed.

For making pharma companies’ engagement with their customers in the changing times, this issue needs to be effectively addressed, soon. The companies will need to select and deploy marketers with a deeper understanding of what HCPs are looking for, to make new digitally focused marketing more meaningful to them – fetching greater business return.

Some studies also signaled that significantly reducing the number of reps – as less staff is required for digital engagement with doctors, may not be prudent at this stage. Instead, the companies need to upskill their digitally savvy reps ‘to integrate remote and digital touchpoints successfully with their in-person touchpoints.’

All these new initiatives when taken in tandem and well-integrated manner, will help meet doctors’ engagement preferences. In that process, pharma players will succeed in taming physicians’ digital fatigue with product-communication overdose, especially, in today’s time – making their marketing efforts more productive and meaningful to HCPs.

By: Tapan J. Ray    

Disclaimer: The views/opinions expressed in this article are entirely my own, written in my individual and personal capacity. I do not represent any other person or organization for this opinion.

 

 

To Reduce Disease Burden India Launches A New Study On Access to Affordable Drugs

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As India is struggling hard to come out of economic meltdown, and more – while navigating through the Covid-19 pandemic, the issue of reducing the National Disease Burden (NDP) with comprehensive measures resurfaces. According to a World Bank study, with ’17.5% of the global population, India bears 20% of the global disease burden.’

It’s also a well-reported fact that one such critical measure in this area is expanding access to affordable medicines to a vast Indian population. This is essential, despite some laudable measures taken by the country in this space. Which is why, it has attracted the government’s focus – yet again, even in the new normal.

This is evident from the Notification of the Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP) dated 13.01.2022. This pertains to the DoP’s request for Proposal (RFP) from reputed companies, “To study the drug pricing policies of different countries/ region and lessons learnt from these countries/ regions in terms of access to medicine at affordable prices.” The selected company will conduct the study, on behalf of the government to understand the drug pricing methodology adopted in at least 10 countries, it said.

According to the RFP document, a minimum of ten countries/regions that should be covered are – Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, China, EU, UK, Australia, USA, Brazil, South Africa, and Thailand. It also mentioned, after selection – the chosen company has to submit its final report in four months, besides quarterly progress report during this period.

This article will focus on the relevance of a renewed government focus on access to affordable medicines, after the third wave of the pandemic, even after various recent measures undertaken by the government in this direction.

What does ‘access’ mean in the healthcare context – a recap:

Although, ‘access’ is a well-used word in the health care scenario, let me recapitulate the same to be on the same page with my readers in this discourse. According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ): Access to health care means having “the timely use of personal health services to achieve the best health outcomes.” It has four components, namely:

  • Coverage: facilitates entry into the health care system. Uninsured people are less likely to receive medical care and more likely to have poor health status.
  • Services: provides a source of care, associated with adults receiving recommended screening and prevention services.
  • Timeliness: ability to provide health care when the need is recognized.
  • Workforce: capable, qualified, culturally competent health care personnel.

Let me emphasize again that the purpose of recapitulating what does healthcare ‘access’ mean, is to give a sense of how are we positioned in India, in this regard.

Key reasons for inadequate access to healthcare, especially in India:

Following are three fundamental reasons for lack, or inadequate access to healthcare, as relevant to India:

  • A large section of the population cannot access healthcare owing its cost relative to their respective income.
  • Many others can’t access, as no quality and affordable facilities are located nearby where they live.
  • Most importantly, a large Indian population can’t have adequate access to quality health care, because they don’t have any healthcare coverage. This point was flagged by the AHRQ, as well.

It is, therefore, noteworthy that to ensure access to quality healthcare, either free or affordable, health coverage for all – public or private, is critical for any nation. Whereas a large Indian population still remains without any health coverage, as the recent government publications vindicate.

Despite high OOPE a large population is still without any health coverage:

On this issue, NITI Aayog report, published in October 2021, shared some important facts. A staggering number of over 400 million Indians, still live without any financial protection for health. This is despite the launch of ‘Ayushman Bharat – Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY)’ launched in September 2018, and State Government extension schemes, the paper says. Notably, ‘the actual uncovered population is higher due to existing coverage gaps in PMJAY and overlap between schemes,’ the report added.

Interestingly, the paper acknowledged: “Low Government expenditure on health has constrained the capacity and quality of healthcare services in the public sector. It diverts most individuals – about two-thirds – to seek treatment in the costlier private sector. “As low financial protection leads to high out-of-pocket expenditure (OOPE). India’s population is vulnerable to catastrophic spending, and impoverishment from expensive trips to hospitals and other health facilities,” it observed.

The government spending on public health at 1.5% of GDP, remains among the lowest in the world impacting reach, capacity, and quality of public healthcare services. It is compelling people to seek treatment in the costlier private sector. Almost 60% of all hospitalizations, and 70% of outpatient services are delivered by the high-cost private sector, NITI Aayog highlighted.

Major part of OOPE goes for buying drugs:

According to the W.H.O’s health financing profile 2017, 67.78% of total expenditure on health in India was paid out of pocket, while the world average is just 18.2%. Moreover, the Union Health ministry had also reported that ‘medicines are the biggest financial burden on Indian households.’ Around 43% of OOPE towards health, reportedly, went for buying medicines and 28% in private hospitals.

Thus: ‘Much of this problem of debt can be solved if medicines are made available to people at affordable prices. The National Health Policy 2017 also highlighted the need for providing free medicines in public health facilities by stepping up funding and improving drug procurement and supply chain mechanisms,” the report added.

Access to affordable drugs continues to remain a top priority today:

The above point was also emphasized in the Annual Report 2020-21 of the Department of Pharmaceuticals. It underscored: ‘The Government is now contemplating to introduce a new National Pharmaceutical Policy, where – ‘Making essential drugs accessible at affordable prices to the common masses,’ featured at the top of the policy objectives, as follows:

  • Making essential drugs accessible at affordable prices to the common masses.
  • Providing a long-term stable policy environment for the pharmaceutical sector.
  • Making India sufficiently self-reliant in end-to-end indigenous drug manufacturing.
  • Ensuring world class quality of drugs for domestic consumption & exports.
  • Creating an environment for R & D to produce innovator drugs;
    Ensuring the growth and development of the Indian Pharma Industry.

What happens when all will come under health coverage, if at all:

Even when, and if, all Indians comes under health coverage – public or private – drug cost will continue to play a major role even to the institutional payers. This is mostly to ensure the cost of health coverage remains reasonable, and affordable to all. This can possibly be done either through:

  • Price negotiation with the manufacturers, or
  • Price control by the government

In any case, there needs to be a transparent mechanism for either of above two, which the government seems to be refocusing on, as it appears today.

Conclusion:

Thus, to reduce the burden of disease in India, especially after going through a harrowing experience of the Covid-19 pandemic, where co-morbidity posed a major threat to life, India is likely to up the ante, as we move into the new normal.

From this viewpoint, a brand-new study, as mentioned above, initiated by the government to facilitate expanded access to affordable medicines, is a laudable initiative for all Indians. It’s a noteworthy point for the drug industry, as well, especially, the research-based pharma and biotech companies. As I wrote before, they should also pick this signal to focus on all 3 areas of innovation for affordable access to innovative drugs, not just on costly patented drugs for only those who can afford.

By: Tapan J. Ray    

Disclaimer: The views/opinions expressed in this article are entirely my own, written in my individual and personal capacity. I do not represent any other person or organization for this opinion.

 

 

Why Is ‘Empathy’ Central In Pharma’s Digital World?

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While pharma industry’s late realization of its slower pace of reform is widely criticized, it did demonstrate a resilience in facing several challenges of change, caused by Covid-19 pandemic to keep the business going. This was witnessed in many areas of customer-value delivery systems of various companies, also in India.

That said, digitalization notwithstanding, a critical soft skill has now emerged as central for a long-term success in the patient engagement process. A transformation is now much warranted in this area, as it remains generally neglected, even today. This space involves – target-audience specific marketing communication – with well-researched, and contemporary content materials that each patient can relate with one’s needs and expectations from a brand.

Many marketers may be missing out on this nuanced, yet a critical space while striving to make their stakeholder engagement more productive for business. In this article, I shall focus on the art of leveraging this critical soft skill set – ‘empathy’, to fetch better dividend from such initiatives of pharma marketers.

An empathetic intent of what customers need and expect is critical: 

‘Empathy’ isn’t totally a revolutionary idea in marketing. But Covid-19 related disruptions in peoples lives and livelihoods, have brought the issue at the center stage of even pharma marketing. In depth understanding or an empathetic intent of what the customers need, expect and are looking for, has emerged as a key requirement of today’s marketing success.

According to studies, with changing patient expectations, preferences, and power to influence treatment decision-making choices, traditional ‘source dominated messages’ are making lesser business impact to their ‘receivers’. The old way of ‘talking at’ the stakeholders with brand messages, gives many receivers a feel that the message is brand biased. It doesn’t encourage them to express their point of view on the same.

Many bright pharma marketers have started understanding the need to listen to and ‘talk with’ them – before and after messaging – to prepare the right personalized content for key customers, and evaluate their business effectiveness, thereafter. This is a nuanced, yet a critical area, which we all need to accept and act upon to ensure a fundamental change in the customer engagement process.

The fundamental difference between the two:

Various experts have acknowledged and explained a fundamental difference between ‘talking at’ and ‘talking with’ conversations. Some these are as follows:

“Talking at someone” is generally used when the message doesn’t intend to offer a reasonable scope for exchange of ideas, or to engage in a conversation, or to express a contrarian viewpoint on a brand or service. Probably, the content doesn’t encourage or elicit any kind of response, especially the negative ones.

Whereas ‘talking with someone’ intends to start a conversation with the brand between the company and the stakeholders. I hasten to add, there are occasions when these two terminologies are interchangeably used. That doesn’t really matter. What does matter is – ‘talking with someone’ requires a critical soft skill. This is called ‘empathy.’ It is so essential – because of today’s need to establish an emotional connect with customers – for any brand or service.  

Empathy is essential – remote or digital marketing notwithstanding:

This point was captured in the IBM article, published on August 12, 2020, as it highlighted the Covid pandemic induced rapid transformation in the digital behavior of many consumers in different business areas. This triggered several rapid, path-breaking, and consumer-friendly innovation, even in the health care space. As a result, people witnessed, among many others, a wider use of telehealth, rapid adoption of e-commerce/e-pharmacies, besides a significant swing towards the digital-first economy.

The IBM article also underscored the need of similar transformation in some other critical areas, like marketing, especially to keep pace with the change in digital behavior and expectations of a growing population. ‘People are increasingly demanding authentic connections, helpful information and personalized support from brands,’ as the paper added.

Meeting this demand and further nurturing the same, send a clear signal to pharma marketers to gain deep insight of ‘this new consumer journey,’ the paper reiterated. Thus, in the contemporary business scenario, the marketers would require – ‘to create a sense of empathy and personal connection by scaling your brand voice, delivering valuable content and recommendations, and learning directly from your consumers in the digital ecosystem’- the author emphasized.

It’s now visible in the customer engagement process of several industries:

If one carefully notices a company’s messaging – both its content and the format, it won’t be difficult to sense a transformation taking place in this area for most other industries. The content of the message and the communication format/platform, now appear to be quite dynamic, personalized, and built on a robust pillar of the critical soft skill – empathy, or rather – empathy-based marketing.

Shifting from marketing-centric thinking to customer-centric thinking:

According to an expert group in this area: ‘Empathy-based marketing is about walking into your customer’s shoes to understand their experience and how we can better help them get what they want. You don’t want to think like the customer. You want to BE the customer.’

While trying to do so, a marketer would need to move away from marketing-centric thinking to customer-centric thinking and speak from the customers’ perspective and at their motivational level. Empathy-based marketing, therefore, encompasses the following ideas:

  • Empathizing with target-customer’s experience by going into their world.
  • Thinking like them while solving a problem and understanding each step they may take to solve it.
  • Looking for ways to help customers make their lives better.
  • Providing customers with what they want by understanding what motivates them and not what you want them to have.
  • Helping them identify and solve problems.
  • Empowering employees who are directly in touch with customers and provide them resources, training, and tools, accordingly.

In pharma – its personal or in-person selling – but the messaging is not:

As we know, in pharma the selling process is generally personal. Company representatives personally meet individual customer to deliver a brand message to generate prescription demand. Patient engagement processes too, remain broadly the same, at times with minor variations, though. Despite a great opportunity to deliver unique personalized messages through empathy-based marketing that recognizes individual value and expectation – traditionally, one-size-fits-all type of contents continue to prevail.

Leverage technology to create empath-based marketing:

The challenge is moving towards a whole new digital world order. In this space marketers would require working with a huge volume of credible and contemporary data on target customers, markets, the interplay of different emotional factors. A well thought through analytics-based study, would play a critical role to get a feel of empathy for selected customers. This would, then, be the bedrock to strategize a productive and personalized engagement with them. Leveraging modern technology would be essential to attain this goal.

What would ‘empathy’ construe in pharma marketing:

According to MM+M: “Empathy includes making sure your brand not only understands the condition that a patient has, but also the experience of having that condition, encompassing both the physical and emotional impact.’ People are expecting a reflection of empathy from the pharma players in their engagement process. Patients and consumers can figure out an empathetic message when they see it. They know when a brand ‘gets it’ and when ‘it doesn’t.’ Thus, it’s important that ‘marketers don’t just preach empathy, but they also practice empathy themselves, the paper highlighted.

Today’s marketing mostly addresses the fundamental needs of patients: 

As the above MM+M paper highlighted - at a fundamental level, patients just want to get better and feel better and manage their condition effectively. On this premise, most patient engagement initiatives, basically, try to address these fundamental needs, in different ways. However, as the research reveals, the above approach would not generally try to empathize with the target audience. Companies now move beyond the hard facts of medical conditions – their symptoms and relief.

According to the above study, today’s marketers would, simultaneously need to: “Find out what life is like for them. Is it a long, complex, frustrating process to access their treatment? What emotional toll does the disease have on them? On their loved ones? Are they scared? Depressed? Like a method actor, I will soak up everything I can about this person and close my eyes and become them.”

Conclusion:

In the contemporary changing market` dynamics, pharma markers can boost the brand performance either by generating increasingly more prescriptions from the existing brand prescribers, or by creating new prescribers. This is an eternal truth and is expected to remain so, as one can foresee today.

As this metamorphosis keeps rolling on, it will necessarily require healthcare marketers to gain contemporary and data-based customer insight – with an empathetic mindset. It’s essential for them to create the ‘wow factor’ – for patients to get the ‘wow feeling,’ because they will be getting a workable solution that they were looking for – to get relief from an ailment. It will, in turn, help most drug companies to overcome the trust-barrier, giving a feel to the customers that the brand and the company do care for them – not just serve the corporate vested interests.

Thus, empathy-based marketing leadership, armed with this critical skill, will also build a long-term and trust-based relationship with stakeholders for better business outcomes. According to a recent research study, published in the Forbes Magazine, on September 19, 2021, ‘empathy’ emerged as one of the most important leadership skills, especially, in the post pandemic business environment, for various reasons.

Consequently, in today’s scenario, only science-based brand engagement with patients can’t possibly help achieve the desired goals any longer. Thus, I reckon, honing the unique soft skill – ‘empathy’, has become central for pharma marketers’ professional success in the digital world – more than ever before.

By: Tapan J. Ray    

Disclaimer: The views/opinions expressed in this article are entirely my own, written in my individual and personal capacity. I do not represent any other person or organization for this opinion.