Accelerating Footfalls In Less Charted Pharma Marketing Frontiers

Posted on March 27, 2023 by Tapan Ray

Having experienced unprecedented disruptions, especially in the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical business, many global and local drug majors, are rethinking their marketing strategies. These have, no doubt, been prompted by the challenges of change, which are sometimes stark, but more often than not - nuanced.

Many of them are now, therefore, charting into less charted or even uncharted frontiers of pharma marketing warfare. Most companies had no choice, though, but to embrace new approaches, at least as a stopgap, to reach their target audience – hoping to revert to pre-pandemic practices, ultimately.

Interestingly, some pharma majors could envisage that long-term focus on many of these new and innovative areas – more effectively than even the pandemic lockdown time, could be a game-changer in the business. Accordingly, they tried to adapt, several of these approaches, quickly and effectively – for sustained excellence in the post-COVID paradigm.

In this article, I shall focus with several global and local, publicly available examples, of innovative pharma marketing approaches that are now being tried by several top drug companies in the post-COVID period.

I. Continuation of pandemic induced innovative approaches – global examples:

Virtual Conferences and Events: Experiencing success with virtual events and conferences during the COVID-19 pandemic, many pharma companies are leveraging this digital space to reach out to healthcare professionals and patients. These events now include webinars, selected virtual conferences, and online workshops.

Pfizer, reportedly, held its first virtual investor day in September 2020, which was attended by thousands of participants from around the world. The company also organized several virtual events to educate healthcare professionals about its vaccine.

Social Media Marketing: The use of social media marketing is also increasing in the pharmaceutical industry. Companies are using platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to reach out to their customers and engage with them on a regular basis to build long-term relationships.

For example, Novartis, among a few others, is using social media to promote core values of its products and engage with customers. The company has built a strong presence on social media platforms where it shares news and updates about its products and research, as well.

Influencer Marketing: Many companies are partnering with influencers in the healthcare industry to promote their products. These influencers can be doctors, nurses, patient advocates, or even celebrities who are passionate about health and wellness. Influencer marketing can help companies reach a wider audience and build trust with their customers.

The French pharma major – Sanofi, has partnered with celebrity chef and diabetes advocate Charles Mattocks who was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in 2011. The objective is to raise awareness about diabetes and promote the company’s diabetes products through social media and other channels.

Patient Education Programs: Companies are investing more on patient education programs to educate patients about their health conditions and treatment options. These programs can include online resources, mobile apps, and support groups. By providing patients with accurate and reliable information, companies can improve patient outcomes and build brand loyalty.

Merck, another global player, developed an online resource called MerckEngage to educate patients about their health conditions and treatment options. The platform provides patients with information about various health topics, including diabetes, cancer, and heart disease.

II. Continuation of pandemic induced innovative approaches – Indian examples:

Some Indian pharma players are also not far behind in several innovative areas for business excellence in the post pandemic paradigm. Following are some of those examples from Indian pharma companies, as available in the public domains. These seem to have attracted greater focus in the pandemic period, and are continuing even today, with undiluted focus:

Virtual Conferences and Events: Illustratively, Lupin has been using virtual events to promote its products in the post-COVID period. The company is organizing virtual conferences and webinars to reach out to healthcare professionals and other customers. Similarly, Sun Pharma launched a virtual conference for healthcare professionals to discuss the latest developments in the field of dermatology.

Digital and Social Media Marketing: Several Indian pharma companies are increasingly adopting digital marketing “strategies to reach out to their customers. Companies are using social media, online ads, email marketing, and other digital channels to promote their products and services.

For example, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories continue using social media platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook to engage with healthcare professionals and consumers. Even, Cadila Healthcare, reportedly, has been using search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, and social media marketing to reach out to its customers.

Telemedicine: With the rise of telemedicine during the pandemic, pharma companies are partnering with Telehealth/Telemedicine platforms to reach out to patients. Companies like Cipla have partnered with telemedicine platforms to offer online consultations and delivery of medicines to patients’ doorsteps. Sun Pharma has also been using telemedicine to reach out to its customers and has partnered with telemedicine providers to offer its products to patients who cannot visit a doctor in person.

Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) advertising: DTC advertising is gaining popularity among Indian pharma companies. With the rise of online pharmacies, companies like Abbott and Pfizer are launching DTC campaigns to increase disease and treatment awareness programs directly to consumers.

Collaborations and partnerships: Indian pharma companies are increasingly collaborating with other players in the healthcare ecosystem to provide integrated solutions. For example, as mentioned above, Lupin has partnered with a health-tech firm to offer a platform for online consultations and home delivery of medicines.

Greater patient-centric approaches: Some Indian pharma companies are adopting more patient-centric approaches for more effective omnichannel patient engagement initiatives. For example, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories have launched an initiative to educate patients on the proper use of medicines and the importance of adherence to treatment.

As the industry continues to evolve, we can expect to see more companies adopting newer and more innovative marketing strategies to engage with their customers.

Summary:

Many of the above examples are pandemic triggered innovative approaches to keep the neck above water during unprecedented business disruptions in the pharma industry. Interestingly, some companies are not just continuing but further sharpening these initiatives in the post pandemic days. Moreover, it’s good to note that these are now being implemented by the concerned sales and marketing teams with greater gusto and zeal.

The point to ponder, therefore, is pharma industry ready now to excel amid start and more often nuanced – the challenge of change? To respond to these challenges effectively, more companies now need to seriously evaluate and consider adapting such strategic footsteps, first as pilot studies and then gradually scale up, for business excellence in the contemporary period.

Let me hasten to add, in this ball game pharma leadership mindset change to act decisively, after accurately studying – based on data-science, to ascertain where and how to change could well be a win-lose situation. However, the good news is, recent data vindicate the accelerating footfalls in many these less or even un- charted pharma marketing frontiers, both globally and locally.

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 Do Drug Companies Now Need More Focus On The 5th “P” Of Marketing?

Posted on March 7, 2022 by Tapan Ray

Astute marketers understand that over several decades, the much-known phraseology – ‘marketing mix’, has remained the bedrock of marketing a product or a service. The ‘Father of Modern Marketing’ - Philip Kotler defined this terminology as the “the set of controllable variables that the firm can use to influence the buyer’s response.” In this context, the controllable variables are referred to as the 4 ‘P’s - Product, Price, Place and Promotion, which remained the basic focus areas in the brand building strategy of pharma marketers, as well.

With an unprecedented transformative impact within the pharmaceutical and biotech industry during the Covid-19 pandemic – for various reasons, ‘purpose’ is fast slotting itself as the 5th fundamental ‘P’ of the marketing-mix. The changing market - triggered by changing customer dynamics, entails the need to clearly define, to the satisfaction of customers, the”purpose” of a business, brand, or service.

As it is increasingly critical to achieve business excellence in the changing paradigm, in this article I will focus on this area from the point of view of goal-oriented pharmaceutical marketing. Although, I wrote before on the need of creating purpose driven brands, this discourse is with a different perspective.

A classic concept gets a fresh impetus in Covid pandemic:

Peter Drucker, whom the Business Week magazine termed as ‘The Man Who Invented Management,’ in 2005, once wrote: “The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer, so well the product or service fits him and sells itself… The aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous.” I reckon, this vision epitomizes the core concept of ‘purpose driven marketing.’

Understanding ‘purpose driven marketing’:

In an article, published on February 01, 2021, Ad Council wrote that after 22 years – a recent CEO roundtable deliberation decided to amend the definition of ‘purpose-driven marketing.’ The previous one was centered around ‘maximizing shareholder return.’ Whereas the amended one, in addition to serving shareholders, defined ‘purpose-driven marketing’ as ‘a strategy used by an organization to center its external communication efforts around a social cause that aligns with its core values. The goal of purpose-driven marketing is for an organization to develop a deeper rapport with their consumers by creating authentic connections based on shared values.’

This new statement reflected the changing culture in the days before the Covid-19 pandemic, when many people are more vocal about their expectations and spending. For which, they are even switching brand or service preferences in line with their values.

Covid prompts consumers rediscovering the value the industry delivers:

Covid -19 crisis has driven the positive consumer sentiment way up, as people are rediscovering the value the industry delivers to meet their new reckoning. This was also articulated in a related article. This was published in the Fierce Pharma, on August 13, 2020, as the pandemic overwhelmed the world. The same consumer sentiment also gets reflected in a first of its kind global study - ‘The 2020 Zeno Strength of Purpose Study,’ published on June 17, 2020.

The survey was carried out against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic, covering 8,000 consumers across eight countries - United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France, China, India, Singapore, Malaysia. The findings of the research ‘sheds new light and unequivocal proof that the companies leading with Purpose will prevail.’ Vast majority of the respondents ‘have spoken and stand ready to give their hearts, voices and wallets in support of Purposeful brands.’

Especially, the healthcare consumers are now stepping up to stand for something more than hard facts on the features and benefits of products and services – something very meaningful that can influence positive changes in their minds. When it happens, the companies’, in tandem, will also be positively impacted to significantly improve their bottom-lines.

Some key findings of the study:

After in-depth study over 75 brands, the researchers of the above study found that:

94 percent of the respondents value the companies with a strong sense of purpose and are willing to reciprocate through brand loyalty.

They are 4 to 6 times more likely to trust, buy, champion, and protect companies with a strong purpose over weaker ones.

Only 37 percent believe today’s companies are reaching their potential on this front

The paper concluded, ‘it has never been more important for companies to not only articulate their Purpose, but to consistently demonstrate that Purpose – how they operate, support issues and engage with all stakeholders.’ As the above Ad Council article articulated, the above findings also ‘mean that purpose-driven marketing can’t be cosmetic. It must be reflected in every aspect of a brand’s business model and culture, or that brand or organization can expect to be called out for hypocrisy – more on that later.’

Who’s driving the ‘purpose driven marketing?’

As I wrote in my previous article, today’s new generations, such as, Millennials - regarded as ‘digital pioneers,’ and Gen Z – the true digital natives, approach their health care in drastically different ways with new sets of expectations. These are quite different from the members of the Silent Generation, Baby Boomers, or Gen X. As the core concept of ‘purpose driven marketing’ is meeting Gen Z’s one such expectation, this population is regarded as the key driver of ‘purpose driven marketing’, in the pandemic-driven changes in the paradigm of the old normal.

I quoted in the above article, ‘Gen Z people are likely to turn the health industry on its head with their unique expectations for how healthcare should be delivered.’ Moreover, this genre of growing population is slowly but steadily gaining a critical mass to hasten the process of change that pharma marketers should take note of.

According to a paper of the World Economic Forum, published on November 08, 2021, there are 1.8 billion Gen Z around the world, equal to 23% of the global population. Yet, another paper of August 11, 2020, reconfirms that Gen Z comprises 1.8 billion people, making up for almost a quarter of the global population. India stands out with a population that includes 375 million Gen Z people – 27% of the total. Thus, Gen Z and millennial populations are considered at the forefront of shaping this new purpose-driven culture.

The Gen Z populations prefer companies contributing to social causes:

The third annual, international study of Gen Z, conducted by The Center for Generational Kinetics and commissioned by WP Engine, launched on July 07, 2020, reveals some interesting facts. These relate to new expectations for the web by Generation Z in comparison to other generations, including Millennials, Gen X, and Baby Boomers. The findings reiterate, ‘72% of Gen Z are more likely to support a company that contributes to social causes.’ It further emphasized, Gen Z is acutely aware that in today’s digital world, anyone can use their voice to ignite change, and that includes those brands which don’t take explicitly socially responsible stand in their branding strategy. Thus, imbibing ‘purpose driven marketing’ is likely to help pharma players to effectively engage this new breed of the target audience for desired long-term financial returns.

Further, based on the same logic, it is not difficult to fathom that ‘stakeholder-trust’ will also play a pivotal role, while delivering consumer expected value, and demonstrating the purpose driven actions of the business – to the Millennial and Gen Z population.

Stakeholder ‘Trust’ is critical in a value and purpose driven business:

This is a new reality, as vindicated by several recent global surveys that include India too. According to Edelman Trust Barometer 2022, ‘business holds on to its position as the most trusted institution, with even greater expectations due to government’s failure to lead during the pandemic.’ This survey – conducted against the backdrop of the pandemic, involved 36,000+ respondents in 28 global markets, including India to look at how institutions are trusted against the backdrop of the pandemic.

Some key findings of this latest study:

All stakeholders want business to fill the void, with nearly 60 percent of consumers buying brands based on their values and beliefs,

Almost 6 in 10 employees choose a workplace based on shared values and expect their CEO to take a stand on societal issues,

64 percent of investors looking to back businesses aligned with their values.

Most respondents (59 percent) said they tend to distrust until seeing evidence that something is trustworthy,

64 percent believe people in their country lack the ability to have constructive and civil debates.

Technology (74 percent) was the most trusted sector, followed by education (69 percent) and healthcare (69 percent). Social media (44 percent) continued its decline with a 2-point slide, solidifying its spot as the least trusted sector.

While Germany (65 percent) and Canada (65 percent) remained the most trusted country brands, India (36 percent) and China (34 percent) remain the least trusted.

The evolving trend indicates that the new generation, ‘wants to be a part of something bigger than themselves and they are looking to their employers to curate a fulfilling, stimulating and purpose-driven environment,’ as the article underscored. In that sense, ‘purpose-driven marketing’ has also the potential for pharma players to attract the best talents of the new generation. Conversely, it is quite likely that any organizations inability to do so, willingly, or otherwise, could help gather rust, blunting its cutting-edge for performance excellence.

Conclusion:

There isn’t any doubt that Covid-19 pandemic has initiated a paradigm shift in the expectations of the stakeholders, especially the customers and the employees from the companies. They no longer expect the organization just to focus on profit goals. Alongside, most of them also want the employers to focus, in equal measure, stakeholder value, expectation, dignity, besides social purpose and goals.

When a pharma player is seen solving societal issues, e.g., protecting the patient-health in a patient friendly manner, or saving the environment - with concrete, quantifiable measures, it creates a competitive edge for the company, fetching significant business returns from stakeholders. Surly, the pandemic is further augmenting expectations of the growing population of Gen Z – for responsible business operations = driven by value, purpose, and goals of the society – where we live in.

Consequently, it’s now becoming clearer that sustainable business excellence of pharma players can no longer be just on ‘maximizing shareholder’ returns, in terms of profit. Thus, it calls for the purpose-driven marketing, where organizational contribution to society would provide a significant competitive advantage. From this perspective, in my view, the Indian pharma marketers would now need much greater focus on the 5^th ‘P’ of the marketing-mix – 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.

Restart Pharma Demand Generation Activities With Actionable Insight

Posted on June 1, 2020 by Tapan Ray

As the ‘Lockdown. 04’ in India passes by, a time comes to press the restart button of all business activities in the country, in a calibrated manner, though, keeping in mind, the Covid-19 cases is yet to find its peak in the country. The process would naturally include all activities of the pharma industry. And more specifically, the prescription demand generation activity, where personal selling has remained pivotal in all these years.

But now, while living with the new Coronavirus, it would require greater cerebral interventions of astute pharma marketers. Creating an innovative pathway for recovery – driven by actionable insights, through an agile and digitally empowered workforce, would be the name of the game for success. In this article, I shall focus on this important area, as the industry moves on.

The bedrock of the new pathway:

The ‘restarting’ process of the prescription demand generation mechanism, I reckon, would no longer be the same ball game. It will now entail gaining cutting-edge actionable insights on the evolving dynamics of the changing business processes. It involves customers’ new preferences for consumption in the healthcare space and ascertaining the most effective demand generation processes or tools in the prevailing new normal.

Therefore, the bedrock of the new pathway, in my view, will necessarily need to be based on:

A huge pool of relevant, credible and preferably real-time ‘Data.’
‘Information’ obtained by analyzing the ‘Data’ as desired.
‘Actionable Insight’ gathered from the collected ‘information.’

The encouraging point is, several companies, even in India, have already started testing the water to chart the way forward.

Some fundamental changes in the path to recovery:

The McKinsey article of May 12, 2020 titled, ‘Pharma operations: The path to recovery and the next normal,’ also noted: ‘Given the shifts that have taken place seemingly overnight in response to the immediate crisis, companies are also turning their attention to recovery and the path to the next normal. It will likely bring about fundamental changes in pharma operations.’

Besides, the future of work will become more remote and distributed, and demand may shift to new capabilities and talent. Moreover, ‘the post-COVID-19 workforce and organization will also likely adopt new, more efficient ways of working.’ Thus, pharma organizations should consider adapting quickly in the path to the next normal, the article added.

The change and increasing relevance of ‘Data’, ‘Information’ and ‘Insight’:

While discussing about ‘Data’, ‘Information’ and ‘Actionable Insight,’ let us first try to understand the differences between each of these three. Voccii, the US based market research firm, captured this difference eloquently, as follows:

Data: the raw and unprocessed facts, captured according to some agreed-upon standards. It could be a number, an image, an audio clip, a transcription, or similar.

Information: the data that has been processed, aggregated, and organized into a more human-friendly format. Data visualizations, reports and dashboards are common ways to present information.

Insight: gained by analyzing data and information to understand the context of a particular situation and draw conclusions. Those conclusions lead to actions that one can apply to business operations.

To facilitate the process of desired changes, translating research data into actionable insights will now be a crucial strategic input. In fact, these are essential while recomposing notes in pharma sales and marketing playbook, more than ever before. Notably, it has now been established in other industries that actionable insights facilitate prompt business process transformation, putting the organization ahead of competition for excellence.

What really are ‘actionable insights?’

Although, these two words are self-explanatory, it’s better to reiterate again – what ‘actionable insights’- based ventures are. It will help all to be on the same page while reading this piece. As I understand, ‘actionable insights’ mean gaining an accurate and deep understanding of someone or something or some situation based on relevant and credible data, that can help generate specific actions for a successful outcome.

However, what generally happens instead, and particularly in the Indian pharma industry, is usually very different. Quite often, many marketers get drowned in a large pool of available data and information, sans the cerebral skill of gaining actionable insights out of those – they start relying more on their ‘gut-feel’. As a result, ‘gut feel’ driven actions try to be in the driver’s seat, rather than data-based ‘actionable insights’ of high value.

Digital insights would be ‘The new currency of business’ in the new normal:

Today, it’s not quite uncommon to find pharma companies, especially in India, having loads of data and information. What they perhaps need to learn is, how to convert those inputs into actionable insights, the lack of which could make even the best of market research initiatives unproductive. That’s why, around the world, many believe that Digital Insights Are The New Currency Of Business. More so, in the new normal of living with Covid-19.

The article – ‘Actionable Insights: The Missing Link Between Data And Business Value,’ published in Forbes on April 26, 2016 also emphasized this point. It said. ‘With many companies struggling to make sense of their data and create value with their big data investments, the promise of actionable insights sounds wonderful. Forrester reports 74% of firms say they want to be “data-driven,” but only 29% are actually successful at connecting analytics to action. Actionable insights appear to be the missing link for companies that want to drive business outcomes from their data.’

Harvesting insights from data can fetch huge financial returns for the company. Which is why, sitting at the apex of the data pyramid, actionable insights help drive strategic action. It prompts rethink the status quo, pushing marketers to move into a new strategic direction. From this perspective, in the new normal of living with Coronavirus, actionable insight based unique brand strategy, content development and the process for reaching out to patients, doctors and other health care consumers, I consider, will decide the degree of business success.

Some focus areas for ‘actionable insights’ in the changing scenario:

Although, ‘actionable insights’ would help strategize a whole new chain of activities for increasing ‘prescription demand generation,’ some of these areas, for example, may include:

Capturing changes in patients’ behavior and preferences, specifically during the national ‘Lockdown’ period, besides, ‘compliance to social-distancing’ norms.

New ways of regrouping patient population, alongside, effective content creation and choosing right platforms for a sharper focus on them in the new situation.

Doctors’ changing preferences for interacting with drug companies for the same reasons.

Making remote prescription demand generating actions highly productive, ensuring a cutting-edge over the competition.

Taking a quantum leap in improving the level of engagement for a greater share of mind with doctors, patients and other stakeholders, without bombarding them with ‘me-too’ emails, messages and calls.

Conclusion:

As the ‘Lockdown. 04’ in India – the second most populous country of the world – ends, as on May 31, 2020 morning, the recorded Coronavirus cases in the country reached 182,490 with 5,186 deaths. Comparing the same with the most populous country of the world – China, where Covid-19 struck first ever – in December 2019, one finds it recording 83,001 cases with 4634 deaths, on the same day.

Be that as it may, after the national ‘Lockdown’ of about two and half months to save lives, it’s about time to restart initiatives for the livelihood of millions of Indians. Accordingly, pharma industry would also hit the restart button of its all business activities in the country – understandably, in a calibrated manner. The restart would include one of its most critical activities – generation of prescription demand, where personal selling has been pivotal in the years passed by. Several research studies have already highlighted a changing pattern in this area.

In the coming days of work while living with Covid-19, all would need to take measures to prevent the Coronavirus infection. Thus, strict compliance with the social distancing guidelines and other norms, as prescribed by the Government, will be ne necessary for all. This would also make the working life of pharma professionals, along with the practices of its stakeholders, significantly different from the traditional past.

From this perspective, while reaching for the restart button in the new normal, pharma sales and marketing leadership would need to create an innovative pathway to recovery. This would call for actionable insights about changes in the behavioral and preference pattern, especially of the healthcare consumers and providers. These will be absolutely critical for commercial success in the ‘new world,’ as it were – more than ever before.

By: Tapan J. Ray

Come Covid-19 Drug And Vaccine, Pharma Will Get Back To The Traditional Mode

Posted on May 18, 2020 by Tapan Ray

‘Corona will remain a part of our lives for a long time. But at the same time, we cannot allow this to happen that our lives will be confined only around the corona. We would wear masks, follow two yards distance and pursue our goals. Therefore, the fourth phase of lockdown, lockdown 4, will be completely redesigned, with new rules,’ said the Prime Minster of India, during his televised address to the nation on May 12, 2020.

Many countries around the world, have already decided to move ahead, phasing out Covid-19 lockdowns cautiously, in a manner that each country will deem appropriate. Alongside, in line with many other industries, several pharmaceutical companies seem to have also started accepting this new reality. For example, Novartis, which reportedly, started digitizing its sales and marketing even before the COVID-19 pandemic, has hit the fast forward button.

This is evident from what Novartis said: “We were already on a journey in terms of our commercial model where digital and other channels and virtual detailing were becoming a bigger part of our mix.” The Company is planning an omnichannel digital launch for its latest new product – Tabrecta for metastatic lung cancer. This was prompted by the very sensitive situation that the world is going through ‘and the extra burden that’s put-on physicians and patients” as the pandemic continues - the company clarified.

This leads to the key question, are most companies on the same wavelength as Novartis, in this area? Or, a large majority of drug players, is still nurturing the hope that prescription demand generation activity from doctors and hospitals will soon return to the traditional mode of what was prevailing during pre-Covid-19 pandemic days? This flows from an age-old experience – a large number of sales or medical representatives have always spearheaded the demand generation mechanism for any patented or brand-generic medicine.

Still, for many it is difficult to even think of any quantum shift in this space, as the traditional core mechanism continues, despite so much hype of digitalizing pharma operations. Whereas, several others do feel, at least, a Covid-19 vaccine or a drug for its effective treatment, which, apparently, are almost knocking at the door, will bring the current situation back to the previous normal. Will vaccine or an effective drug be a panacea to win the war of Covid-19 pandemic, decisively? In this article, I shall dwell on this subject. To set the ball rolling, let us fathom whether or not coming out with a safe and effective Covid-19 vaccine, in a jiffy, is rather a certainty.

Is Covid-19 vaccine a certainty?

No doubt, a large majority of people believe, a vaccine to prevent COVID-19 is perhaps the best hope for ending the pandemic, as Mayo Clinic has also said so. However, it also records the following major apprehensions or challenges in developing a COVID-19 vaccine, based on the research data:

Ensuring vaccine safety
Providing long-term protection
Protecting older people

On May 12, 2020, at the US Senate hearing about the path forward from pandemic lockdowns in the United States, NIAID director Anthony Fauci also said, there’s “no guarantee” any of the vaccines in testing will be effective, though based on his knowledge of other viruses, he is “cautiously optimistic.” Thus, projections about how COVID-19 will play out, are still mostly speculative.

Why ‘projections about how COVID-19 will play out are still speculative’?

A recent article – ‘How the COVID-19 Pandemic Could End,’ published in the ‘Scientific American,’ also commented so. It said, the end game will most likely involve a mix of everything that checked past pandemics:

Continued social-control measures to buy time,
New antiviral medications to ease symptoms,
And a vaccine.

Citing the famous example of the H1N1 influenza outbreak of 1918–1919, it said, doctors and public health officials had far fewer weapons than they do today. Thus, the effectiveness of control measures, such as school closures depended on how early and decisively, they were implemented. Over two years and three waves, the pandemic infected 500 million and killed between 50 million and 100 million. It ended only as natural infections conferred immunity on those who recovered.

Which is why, as on date the pursuit to achieve all three goals as mentioned above, would likely to continue. That said, a safe an effective Covid-19 vaccine will be the most preferred way to stop rapid transmission of the Coronavirus outbreak. However, this comes with a critical caveat.

Would the entire population need to be vaccinated?

Experts believe, unless a vaccine is administered to all of the world’s eight billion inhabitants who are not currently sick or recovered, COVID-19 is likely to become endemic. It will circulate and make people sick seasonally—sometimes very sick. But if the virus stays in the human population long enough, it will start to infect children, showing mild symptoms.

In that process, children appear less likely to develop severe disease if they get re-infected as adults. Thus, the combination of vaccination and natural immunity will protect many of us. ‘The Coronavirus, like most viruses, will live on—but not as a planetary plague,’ the ‘Scientific American,’ article concluded.

Covid-19 end game to involve a mix of those that checked past pandemics:

Let us now look at the possible mix of the Covid-19 end game, which were involved in checking the past pandemics, one by one:

Continued social-control measures to buy time:

The social control measures would include compliance with the prescribed social distancing norms, in tandem with aggressive testing for the infected individuals, isolating them, and quarantining their contacts. These measures were well tested in the past epidemics and useful if followed well, by all.

Therefore, from the pharma industry perspective, getting back to the traditional ‘pre Covid-19 mode’ of prescription demand generation mechanism, will indeed be challenging for most drug players.

Availability of well-tested antiviral medications to ease Covid-19 symptoms:

So far, there is no scientifically and well-tested medications for the treatment of Covid-19. However, many different medications are under clinical trials in various parts of the world. So far, most hyped among them appears to be remdesivir, an experimental antiviral developed by Gilead for the treatment of Ebola.

However, the clinical study result of ‘Remdesivir in adults with severe COVID-19,’ published in The Lancet on April 29, 2020 found that the dose regimen of intravenous remdesivir used in the study, was adequately tolerated, but did not provide significant clinical or antiviral effects in seriously ill patients with COVID-19.

The World Health Organization (WHO) also, reportedly, announced a large global trial, called ‘Solidarity’, to find out whether any of those drugs can treat infections with the Covid-19. In India, several drug companies are also testing the water, with their shortlisted drugs, such as, Zydus Cadila want to test a form of interferon, usually used against hepatitis B and C, as a potential treatment for COVID-19. More trials on remdesivir are ongoing, let us keep our fingers crossed.

Interestingly, Gilead has, reportedly, signed nonexclusive licensing agreements with five Indian generic drug makers – Cipla, Mylan, Ferozsons Laboratories, Hetero Labs and Jubilant Lifesciences, to produce COVID-19 therapy remdesivir for low- and lower-middle income countries. Under the agreements, Gilead will share its manufacturing know-how with them to help gear up remdesivir local production. Moreover, each of these companies will be allowed to set the price for its own generic version of the drug.

In any case, scientifically proven safety and efficacy of any drug or vaccine for the prevention or treatment of Covid-19, is yet to be known. Hence, for all individuals, strict compliance with social distancing measures is the only way to avoid this highly contagious infection. The same is also applicable to doctors and sales representatives while working in the field, at least, till an effective Covid-19 vaccine or drug comes.

Affordability and access to Covid-19 drug and vaccine:

Assuming that a safe, effective and clinically proven vaccine or a drug for Covid-19 will be available sooner than what experts anticipate now, yet another critical issue needs to be resolved, soon. This is related to their affordability and access, to contain the mortality and morbidity of the disease, for a vast majority of the population, especially in the developing nations, like India.

Even Gavi noted: ‘In the race to produce a safe and effective vaccine against the COVID-19 virus, one of the many challenges will be the cost of developing the vaccine and eventually getting it to the vast number of people worldwide who will need it.’ However, it is generally anticipated that ‘COVID-19 vaccine or a drug may end up costing people a small fortune.’ Another article also echoed the same sentiment by saying, ‘Covid-19 treatments won’t work if people can’t afford them.

However, India’s Serum Institute based at Pune, has announced that it is ready for 20-40 million vaccine shots at Rs 1,000/dose, by September-October 2020. The company is ‘’putting its weight behind an Oxford University-led consortium, which announced the start of human clinical trials on April 23 and is one of the first such projects to get underway globally.’

At the same time, another report emphasized: “Even after India approves the Coronavirus vaccine, it might not be possible to produce more than 10-20 million doses in the first year,” again raising the availability and access issue for a Covid-19 vaccine, as and when available in India.

Conclusion:

As on May 17, 2020 morning, the recorded Coronavirus cases continue to climb sharply to 90,927 with 2,872 deaths.. Moreover, on May 13, 2020, the world Health organization has also warned that “this virus may become just another endemic virus in our communities, and this virus may never go away.” Thus, the world has to live with it. By the way, the accuracy of many Covid-19 test kits has also been widely questioned. This reportedly includes speedy Abbott test, as well.

In this scenario, people may have to necessary live with social distancing norms and the practice of wearing a mask outside the home, always. Besides, the template for relief from Covid-19 becomes more complex, particularly considering availability, affordability and access to a safe and effective drug or vaccine in India, as and when these will come. Taking these together, the end game for Covid-19 in the foreseeable future, becomes anybody’s guess.

Coming back to the pharma industry, curiously, some people are still hoping for ‘business as usual’ in the traditional pre-Covid-19 mode, although the writing on the wall is increasingly getting clearer. The only alternative that people can possibly follow under the circumstances, is strict compliance to social distancing norms, which pharma companies, doctors, healthcare consumers and others would also require to adhere to, with as much earnest. Thus, envisaging a return to pre-Covid-19 prescription generation mode, may not be prudent choice, anymore.

By: Tapan J. Ray

Post Covid-19 Lockdown: Is Pharma Industry Ready?

Posted on April 27, 2020 by Tapan Ray

It’s over a month now since national lockdown in India came into force to win the war against Covid-19. Many promises and apprehensions about whether or not Covid-19 will keep ravaging human life, continue surfacing. As it appears today, whatever best happens post May 03, 2020, the Coronavirus outbreak is going to change the way we live and the businesses used to operate, in many respects, till an effective vaccine comes, at the very least. This change also includes the health care, in general, and the pharmaceutical industry, in particular.

It is obvious now that Covid-19 will stalk the planet for a long time to come. On April 22, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) also reiterated: ‘Make no mistake, Coronavirus will be with us for a long time.’ This vindicates many apprehensions against an early promise of winning the Covid19 war decisively in 21-days or even by May 03, 2020, or whenever the national lockdown is phased-out in a calibrated manner. Further, W.H.O has also cautioned: “Most countries are still in the early stages of their epidemics. And some that were affected early in the pandemic are now starting to see a resurgence in cases.”

As on April 26, 2020, the recorded Coronavirus cases in India has sharply climbed to 26,496 and 825 deaths, with the Union Health Ministry saying on April 23, 2020: ‘Doubling rate of Covid-19 cases in country is now 10 days.’ Whereas, on the same day, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) also said, ‘for now, it is very difficult to tell when a peak state of COVID-19 pandemic in the country will arrive.’

The life-changing disruptions that Covid19 has caused, and may continue to cause in the near future, has apparently made a significant impact, also on how the healthcare consumers think about the available disease treatment solutions, including buying medicines. Thus, in this article, I shall, focus on this area.

Why winning the Covid-19 war can’t be immediate:

Covid-19 pandemic brought the drug industry under a sharp focus of the entire world, with an expectation to win the war against this deadly and invisible virus. This solution could be anything – an effective prevention, such as, with a vaccine, or a curing the infection with a drug, or even a mechanism that is able to make the virus less contagious. There are still no scientifically proven and approved drugs or vaccines for Covid-19. Although, many trial and error experiments are in progress, mainly based on anecdotes and gut-feeling, for the respiratory disease caused by Coronavirus.

The good news is, since January 2020, after scientists in China provided the virus’s genetic sequence, over 40 teams of global drug companies and the academia, are working on a vaccine and drugs for Covid-19. As of now, six Coronavirus vaccines are on clinical trial. Last Thursday, human safety trial of Oxford University developed Covid-19 vaccine, with the first two of 800 healthy volunteers, has commenced. Meanwhile, Serum Institute of India (SII) has tied-up with the Oxford University to manufacture the vaccine in India, if the trial succeeds.

Some bad news in this area also came by, such as, ‘remdesivir’ – the well-hyped drug, thought to be one of the best prospects for treating Covid-19, failed to have any effect during the first full trial. However, Gilead – the drug company developing this product has said, ‘the findings were inconclusive because the study was terminated early.’

The bottom-line is, although, first tests for more new vaccines may commence within a few months, the final regulatory approval of these will take much longer - at least 18 months, i.e. not before 2022, according to W.H.O. Meanwhile, some disruptive changes within current health care delivery systems, involving both behavior and transaction practices of key stakeholders, may prompt equally disruptive changes in the Indian health care delivery mechanisms. These changes are likely to have unforeseen impact on several pharma operations, critical for business excellence in the drug industry.

Commonly followed procedures for the Indian healthcare system:

The procedures that most health care consumers currently follow for healthcare in India, require patients to be physically present in most touchpoints of a disease treatment process. These include, doctors, chemist shops, hospitals, diagnostic clinics, among others. During the national lockdown period, redressal of non-Covid-19 related common health issues, has been a great challenge for many people, such as:

visiting a doctor
going to a hospital outdoor
procurement of medicines from retail shops for chronic conditions
visiting a diagnostic clinic even for follow-up – previously advised by a doctor

This happened primarily due to the need of compliance of social distancing and mostly out of fear of getting the Covid-19 infection. Fortunately, the available digital platforms to address the pressing common health issues, proved to be of immense help to many.

Pharma business has also been greatly impacted:

Driven by initial panic buying of regular medicines by the people, for the lockdown period and may be beyond, monthly sales of pharma might show a spurt. But, that is unlikely to be the real picture for a medium to long term. Otherwise, like many other industry sectors, pharma business has also been greatly impacted by the Covid-19 outbreak, across its various domains – right from planned R&D – through manufacturing, sales and marketing – to supply chain.

The early adopters to the new normal will be the outright winners:

For example, meeting a doctor for product detailing following the conventional chain of activities, and simultaneously maintaining strict ‘personal distancing’ or ‘social distancing norms, may not be the same again. The changes required by the pharma companies to make this process effective and productive, may also be disruptive in nature.

No-one can accurately predict toady, how exactly the important business operations can be resumed, ensuring full health-safety for all and with compromising on the effectiveness and productivity of business. Nevertheless, one thing for sure, lockdown during Covid-19 pandemic has brought the possibility and the opportunity of going digital to the fore, for both – the healthcare business and also its consumers, including various other stakeholders. The early adopters to the new normal are expected to be the outright winners.

Green shoots of digitalization within healthcare consumers and providers:

As digital transformation at health care consumers and providers level, gain a critical mass, the healthcare business would require to be not just digitalized, but also digitally innovative. The situation would demand from them to be much more ‘customer centric’ on digital platforms, as the locked down – homebound health care consumers, complying with ‘social distancing’ norms, get increasingly more digitally empowered.

Bain & Company in its March 20 ‘Brief’, titled ‘How the Coronavirus Will Transform Healthcare in China,’ discussed some of these issues from China perspective, which are already visible there. To illustrate this point in this deliberation from the Indian perspective, let me draw examples from the country’s health care consumers’ standpoint.

Is the traditional health care system slowly undergoing a metamorphosis?

The overall impact of Covid-19 outbreak in India has made visiting general practitioner’s (GP) clinics, pathological labs or even hospital emergency facilities, a tough challenge for many patients. This is primarily out of fear of getting a Coronavirus infection from others during the process, with strict compliance to ‘social distancing’ becoming a top priority for many. Consequently, traditional healthcare related activities in India, is likely to undergo an early metamorphosis.

Being literally locked down at home, a good number of healthcare consumers in India, are utilizing innovative digital platforms, for common illnesses or follow-up consultations, such as:

for medical consultation on digital platforms, e.g., Skype, Facetime etc.
getting diagnostic tests done at home by requesting through digital apps,
sending test reports to doctors digitally,
getting doctors prescription through digital mode,
ordering medicines through e-pharmacy apps by uploading prescriptions,
getting medicines delivered at home after e-payment,
repeating the same process whenever required.

An upside of the situation:

The upside of the situation is, these patients are feeling more digitally empowered and self-reliant to get non-too-serious ailments addressed against all odds. Some of these practices, such as, online consultation with doctors, getting most of the medical tests done at home, buying medicines through e-pharmacies, I reckon, may continue even after calibrated withdrawal of the national lockdown in India. The net impact of all could trigger a meaningful attitudinal change in patients, especially towards health care delivery processes, in general.

The healthcare industry is ready to log on to this digital mode?

Many early adopters in the global pharma industry, are going for digitalization within various functional domains of the company, at a varying scale. This has started happening in India, as well. However, as social distancing becomes the new normal in the foreseeable future, how prepared are the pharma companies to adopt themselves with the increasing number of digitally empowered consumers, is still unclear. More importantly, how will the industry meet new demands at various points of transaction and interaction with various critical stakeholders, such as, doctors, in the post Covid-19 eraof social distancing, ensuring health safety of all?

Another requirement that should form the bedrock of the grand integrated corporate strategy of a customer-centric pharma business, necessarily, in the changing times. This is – all decisions in this area must be based on a huge pool of contemporary data, analyzed by sophisticated data analytics and thereafter, the strategic and tactical pathways need to be charted, desirably, through skillful application of Artificial Intelligence (AI), because of evolving complex and multi-dimensional health care needs of the consumers.

Alongside, telemedicine in different new formats – even for GP level consultations, besides, drug procurement through e-payment from approved e-pharmacies by uploading doctor prescriptions, signal a great potential in the years ahead. This appears to be very close to reality, especially, going by the W.H.O prediction for a long-haul Covid-19 battle, where compliance with ‘social distancing,’ is one of the basic requirements of health safety for all.

Conclusion:

‘Month of lockdown impedes virus – a long battle lies ahead’. As the former President of the Unites States twitted on April 25, 2020, ‘If we want life to approach anything like normal anytime soon, we need a comprehensive testing program. It’s not going to be cheap, but it will ultimately pay off many times over in saved lives, saved businesses, and saved jobs.’

In any case the crux of the matter is, Covid-19 is not going to vanish soon, even after scaling down of the lockdown in a calibrated way. Moreover, the fear, if not the panic of a large population in India and around the world, on the possibility of getting infected by Covid-19, will continue – till one does not get vaccinated or acquire ‘herd immunity’ in a different way. Meanwhile, related behavioral changes and habits, of a large number of people, including health care consumers, will continue taking place.

From this perspective, besides the existing ones, once the lockdown-period-converted ‘e-consumers’ of health care get used to the new digital mode of availing healthcare services against e-payments, it could have a snowballing impact on many others. That will help usher in a new paradigm of medical consultation, follow-up interaction, disease diagnosis, drug procurement and all related transactions, through digital platforms.

Having experienced the convenience and user-friendliness of the digital mode, during an extended period of social or physical distancing and other new normal, instead of time-consuming legwork, it seems unlikely that the majority will try to go back to the traditional mode of pre-Covid 19 era. In that situation pharma companies will have no option but to necessarily re-engineer the business operations, bringing disruptive digitalization at the center of any strategy formulation related to mainly patients and doctors, besides others.

Covid-19 prompted lockdown and the post lockdown period, I reckon, is unlikely to be a ‘switch-off’ and ‘switch-on’ type of a situation for anyone or any industry, as threat of getting Coronavirus infected will continue for quite some time. The need of the hour for pharma players in India, therefore, is gaining deep insight, through continuous data capturing and analysis, on each component of the changing market dynamics – prompted by Coronavirus pandemic. The point to ponder, therefore, is pharma industry getting ready for a possible disruptive change in the future environment?

By: Tapan J. Ray

Acid Test For Excellence in Crisis Leadership

Posted on April 13, 2020 by Tapan Ray

On April 12, 2020 – in the morning of the day 19 of the national lockdown, India’s total number of Coronavirus positive cases reached 8,504 with 289 deaths. The country’s trajectory is reportedly steeper than most Asian peers, such as Singapore, Japan, and Indonesia. Incidences of new infections and deaths are also rising faster. The report also highlighted a possible link between number of tests conducted and the number of confirmed cases across the States. The aggregated impact of Covid19 outbreak has created an unprecedented health, social and economic calamity, changing everybody’s life – now and beyond.

However, going by Prime Minister Modi’s announcement on March 24, 2020, the national lockdown to contain the pandemic should continue till April 14, 2020. But, the above scenario is creating a huge dilemma within almost all Coronavirus crisis management leadership in the States, with the final decision resting upon the Prime Minister of India. Meanwhile, on April 09, 2020, Odisha government decided to extend the lockdown until April 30, followed by Punjab, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Telengana on April 11, 2020. However, all will get to know India’s decision in this regard for the rest of India, as you read this piece today.

The top leaders of Asia, Europe and American continents are handling the grave situation differently, with a varying degree of success, so far. Everybody is watching different world leaders in action – each trying hard to gain control over the unprecedented crisis, making it an acid test for excellence in Crisis Leadership.

Three different types of needs for the country:

As I see, three specific types of needs of three specific classes of people in the social milieu, are emerging in India:

Only need is to save life from the disease, with not much problem in procuring other essential requirements – having enough wherewithal to pull through the critical period, better than most others.
Strong need exists to save life, but facing tough challenges in arranging for essential needs for daily living.
Need to save life, but feel desperate for the means of livelihood – to protect family and defendants from hunger, in a seemingly uncertain future.

In the current situation, while trying to contain the spread of pandemic effectively, the sufferings of especially, the second and third group, as stated above, also need to be addressed, ‘and this is much aided by a participatory democracy.’

An acid test for crisis leadership at the top:

The situation isn’t just a war against Covid19, but much beyond that. The Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen at Harvard University explained the situation so well in an article, published on April 08, 2020. He lucidly illustrated, that the needs of people in a natural calamity, such as Coronavirus caused a pandemic, are different from a conventional war – against an enemy country. Desirable leadership qualities are also significantly different.

As Professor Sen wrote, while managing a crisis situation during a conventional war, ‘a leader can use top-down power to order everyone to do what the leader wants – with no need for consultation.’ But, managing a crisis during a natural calamity, a leader should demonstrate skills for a ‘participatory governance and alert public discussion.’ Listening to public discussion makes the top leadership understand what needs to be done by the policy makers.

Another paper, titled “Steering Through the Storm,” published in the ‘People + Strategy’, also reiterated the same with different words. It emphasized, “during a crisis, like natural calamity, leaders should engage actively with their constituents whenever possible, distinguishing critical issues from less pressing needs, communicating risks, and maintaining readiness. Throughout the crisis, leaders should remain accessible and open to new sources of information, and take care of their own needs when necessary and appropriate.”

How different countries are demonstrating crisis leadership:

Like other countries, crisis leadership is now clearly visible even in India – right from 1 day ‘people’s curfew’, to the announcement of 21-day national lockdown for Covid19 outbreak. An interesting article, published in Forbes on March 10, 2020, deliberated on what China, Italy and the United States teach us about crisis leadership. These examples give a sense of how different countries, facing similar but country-specific problems with Covid19, reacted with remarkable ‘different approaches and results.’ I am paraphrasing below some recent illustrations on crisis leadership, as captured in the above paper:

China: China was the first country to face this calamity beginning in Wuhan of the Hubei province. With command and control leadership and decisive action China was able to immediately to garner and consolidate all its resources for an aggressive response. The World Health Organization called it as, “perhaps the most ambitious, agile and aggressive disease containment effort in history.” This includes closing down manufacturing sectors, sharing information widely, executing mass testing and quarantining millions of people. The Chinese government made the decision to absorb a significant economic cost to contain COVID-19 rather than potentially lose control and the result was effective - the number of new cases has steadily decreased in weeks’ time.

However, the downside of this type of leadership is the possible erosion of trust in the system. As the Atlantic documented, local Chinese officials reported the Covid19 outbreak to the federal government weeks after it began. They also understated the extent of the disease spread, until whistle-blowers stepped forward – and were subsequently punished. This delay probably cost China valuable time in containing the initial outbreak.

This demonstrates, under a command and control ‘crisis leadership’, when people are afraid to tell the truth and discouraged from speaking up, critical information may not reach leadership, until the problem intensifies, the paper added. That said, whether the COVID19 outbreak may have been contained earlier under different leadership conditions, cannot be concluded for sure, at least, in this case. However, official data release now shows more than doubling of new Coronavirus cases to 99 in Mainland China, on April 11, 2020. Moreover, newly reported asymptomatic Coronavirus cases also nearly doubled to 63 on the same day. Hence, the fire has still not been doused. The crisis lingers.

Italy: The catastrophic impact of Covid19 in Italy, helps identify some avoidable areas in ‘crisis leadership’. With rapidly changing and inconsistent messaging, the leaders possibly created panic and distrust among people of all kinds. The top leadership seems to have underestimated the potential spread of the virus, and was not acting in coordination with various groups and stakeholders to contain it, initially.

It happened, despite Italy is a democratic country, unlike China. But, the country, apparently, did not comply with the robust and critical ‘crisis leadership’ norm of fact-based ‘participatory governance and alert public discussion’, as discussed above. This reconfirms that ‘crisis leadership’ must be very careful in saying something they will end up contradicting later, while handling, especially a social calamity, like Covid19 outbreak.

The United States: With the fire of Covid19 outbreak spreading fast in the United States, one finds again, some basics of crisis management norms were missing in the top leadership of the oldest and a robust democracy of the world. Instead, President Trump demonstrated ‘a tendency to rely heavily on his inner circle rather than subject matter experts and to state opinions as facts.’ The President also contradicted experts on his own task force attempting to educate the public, most notably by consistently overstating the scientifically acknowledged timeline to create a vaccine and the preventive medicine combo. He also questioned the reported fatality rate of the virus.

This type of ‘crisis leadership’ is likely to fail in inspiring trust and confidence with the masses, the article concluded. This is evidenced by the current status of the country. The lethal firepower of Covid19 is still hitting the United States very hard, against all its might to fight the invisible enemy garnering all its resources and possibly taking more lives than what it lost, as on date, while fighting all its wars. As on April 11, 2020, the death toll from Coronavirus in the United States eclipsed Italy’s for the highest in the world, surpassing 20,000 marks.

Now let me focus on India, with my own assessment about the ‘crisis leadership’ while responding to this crisis, of course, initially.

India:

To get a perspective of Covid19 spread in South Asia on a relative yardstick, let’s look at the following Government released figures, as quoted in the Reuters report on April 08, 2020:

Country	Ind	Pak	Afghan	Sri Lanka	Bangladesh	Maldives	Nepal	Bhutan
Cases	5274	4072	444	189	218	19	9	5
Death	149	58	14	7	20	0	0	0

On April 11, 2020, the World Bank estimated, the ‘worst economic slump in South Asia in 40 years.’ Further, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and other three smaller nations, with 1.8 billion people and thickly populated cities, although have so far reported relatively few Coronavirus cases, could be the next hotspots for Covid19.

With this, let us look at the Covid19 narrative being unfolded in India, so far. In a lighter vein, following the interesting events with ‘sound’ and ‘light’, the ‘camera’ of time has indeed captured a commendable display of high quality ‘crisis leadership’ in India. Especially, under the given circumstances prevailing at that juncture. The leadership approach fits so well into one of the most critical requirements of crisis management – ‘participatory governance and alert public discussion.’

Even, some seemingly pointless events for some, at the end of the day, did raise morale of many in the fight against Covid19 outbreak, besides their level of participation and involvement in this crisis. Whether or not it is purely due to the personal charisma of the Prime Minister and his huge followings, also doesn’t matter much, as the point is, what really happened, instead of why it happened.

Besides, right from the declaration of ‘Peoples Curfew’ of March 22, 2020 to 21-day national lockdown, the Prime Minister has involved the State Chief Ministers, but also the leaders of opposition parties. Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) is also visible in the forefront. The net result is the support that the Prime Minster is getting from all, despite hardship – an epitome of ‘crisis leadership,’ as on date.

Thus, the beginning has been laudable, especially when India had no option but to enforce a lockdown, in one form or the other, without having enough testing kits, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for healthcare manpower and required health care infrastructure for quarantine or isolation of people. Let me explain this point with a very recent example.

According to a recent report, Covid19 test guidelines presumed that most patients in India acquired the virus from their travels abroad, or from someone who travelled abroad. Accordingly, with a limited number of kits, tests were conducted to zero in on these patients, isolating and quarantining them, to curb the spread of the virus. very focused with lesser requirements of the testing kits.

However, the data compiled by ICMR from random Coronavirus tests on patients with severe respiratory diseases, indicate that 38 percent of Covid19 patients with no travel or contact history have contracted the virus. On April 10, 2020, the Government said that the testing has now been increased to 16000 from earlier 5000-6000 people per day. This raises the vital question: has Covid19 outbreak in India has progressed or progressing from stage 2 to stage 3 of the outbreak, or has the community spread of the disease begun, the last and final stage being stage 4 – the scary virtually uncontrolled Coronavirus outbreak? Alarmingly, as has been widely reported, even on April 12, 2020: ‘Coronavirus in India: Several targets missed, still no sign of rapid testing kits.’ Currently, ‘India ranks extremely low in the Coronavirus-hit countries list based on the number of tests done per million population.’

Thus, the declaration of 21-day national lockdown on March 24, 2020, at the early stage of the Coronavirus outbreak in India was an unprecedented decision. Besides, containing the rapid disease spread, it gave India a small time-space to prepare itself – with more testing kits, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for healthcare manpower and adequate number of high-quality – isolation, quarantine and treatment facilities, equipped the disease specific requirements, such as, ventilators.

No matter what, the decision for a 21-day nationwide complete lockdown, giving priority to life over livelihood was a tough call to take for any leader. It indeed was a part of the critical test for excellence in ‘crisis leadership,’ at that point of time.

Conclusion:

Be that as it may, as the saying goes ‘proof of the pudding is in the eating,’ the acid test for excellence in ‘crisis leadership’, obviously, will be based on the quality of outcomes and the time it will take. This will include multiple key factors, such as, the speed of health, social and economic turnaround of a country, which is sustainable. Nevertheless, the crisis is far from being over – anywhere in the world, just yet, and the jury is still out.

By: Tapan J. Ray

Rebalancing Skill Sets In Pharma Sales And Marketing

Posted on May 29, 2017 by Tapan Ray

A disturbing trend against much needed more job creation across the world, has been well captured in a May 2016 MIT article. It concluded through several complex mathematical models that: “As more tasks performed by labor are being automated, concerns that these new technologies will make labor redundant have intensified.”

However, despite well-hyped concerns in this area, ongoing rapid advancement of technology and other related innovation haven’t yet caused any alarming level of unemployment anywhere in the world, nor it possibly will. Several instances of gradual reduction in the number of routine and traditional jobs due to such automation, are generally related to a lesser level of hard skill sets. As we shall see below, many industries require doing so in the modern times, for long term sustainability of business.

In tandem, promising high tech jobs requiring state or the art hard skill sets are getting created too, though are fewer in number. Nevertheless, the number of brilliant startups has increased by manifolds, during the same period. This change is inevitable, mostly in any science and technology driven industry, e.g., banking sector, where most of human operated bank tellers have made way to ATM machines.

A recent vindication:

Vindicating this point, as it were, on May 18, 2017, Reuters reported that Swiss pharma major Novartis, as a part of its “ongoing global transformation” initiative launched last year to create a unified operating model, will cut around 500 traditional and routine jobs in Switzerland, and add 350 in high-tech areas. Immediately thereafter, for similar reasons, the company announced the elimination of another 250 jobs in the United States.

Jobs are important to all for a living. Any job loss, irrespective of the nature of business compulsion, is indeed unfortunate. That said, whether we like it or not, such evolving trends are the stark realities, and expected to continue or even accelerate in the years ahead for higher growth in productivity, especially involving the routine and traditional tasks.

Pharma industry, though a science-based one, loss of routine and traditional jobs due to technological advancement is fortunately still much less as compared to other similar industries. This is primarily due to the continuation of the traditional business models in the pharma sector, requiring a huge number of human intervention, which call for a different balance of soft and hard skill sets.

However, crystal gazing the future, it appears quite likely that there will be a strong need to rebalancing the required soft and hard skills in the drug industry. The contour of my discussion in this article will be on pharma sales and marketing.

Skill – the ability to do something well:

The Oxford dictionary defines ‘skill’ as ‘the ability to do something well’. Similarly, the term ‘ability’ has been defined by it as ‘possession of the means’. Thus, ‘skill’ means ‘possession of the means to do something well’. It is an absolute must in all professions, including pharma sales and marketing.

Skills broadly fall into two categories – hard and soft skills. Hard skills involve specific knowledge and teachable abilities that can be defined and measured and are usually quantifiable.

Hard skills are individual proficiency in various scientific, technical, mathematical and even some artistic areas of creation, besides other related ones. In pharma sales and marketing arena of the near future, these include, among others, robust scientific knowledge-base to understand various aspects of drug molecules, content creation with astute market understanding, data generation and analysis through state of art analytics and research, software programing, digital savviness and social media expertise. Many of these skills are related to the Intelligent Quotient of an individual.

Soft skills, on the other hand, are less tangible and quantifiable, such as etiquette or personality development; work ethics, getting along with people, ability to listen patiently, overcoming objections, persuading others and a deep sense of accountability. Many of these skills are usually related to emotional intelligence of an individual.

Which one is more important?

Both hard or soft skills are useful, valuable and important. However, the mix of these two skills for high performance of any individual professional will generally depend on success requirements of a job in a specific macro business environment.

That said, it is important to note that most of the hard skills are taught and learnt mostly before a person’s entry into science, technology or various other craft or design based jobs. The related hard skills are essential for getting selected for specialized jobs. Whereas, softer skills are usually learned on the job, and through experience by all those who want to grow in the profession.

In this context, it may not be a bad idea for all pharma sales and marketing professionals to take a hard look at our own current soft and hard skill sets again, against rapidly changing demands of the business environment. Regardless of where we are now, it will be worth writing down on a piece of paper the type of each of these two skills, in order of their strengths, that we individually possess, which are good enough for achieving sustainable excellence in business performance and personal career progression. It may provide a broad sketch of where we stand today in the VUCA world.

The years ahead for pharma won’t be quite the same:

A strong wind of change has already started signaling that the years ahead for the pharma industry, won’t be quite the same as the bygone years nor like what it is today. Some, industry professionals have picked up this cue, while many are still in pursuit of replicating the traditional past with some digital tweaking here and there, whatever may be the reasons.

The current mix of skill sets of the sales and marketing professionals, quite perceptibly, tilts more towards sharpening the softer skills of the employees, as the traditional pharma business models prompt so.

Future need – rebalancing the skill sets:

To be a successful in the days ahead, pharma companies would need to dive deep into the cyberspace – just to be on the same wavelength with its important stakeholders, including, the Government.

Looking around, one witnesses many patients going digital at a faster pace than ever before. They enjoy the cyberspace while embracing the new ways of living life, such as – communicating digitally, chatting in WhatsApp sharing patient’s experience, interacting with online patient communities, and preferring data mining to know more about anything of interest. These activities also get them a sense of the differential advantages of various health care products, services and their cost, before or while consulting doctors and deciding what they can afford.

Similarly, many medical professionals are also not depending solely on the company representatives now to get relevant details on any medicinal product, device or services. Besides frequent interaction with their peer groups, they get such detail information from various websites run by independent, and credible expert groups.

Thus, one of the common arena for pharma stakeholder engagement and interaction would soon be the enigmatic Cyberspace. As the changing days come nearer, there is likely to be greater emphasis on the acquisition of talent having specialized hard skills in this area of sales and marketing.

This emerging scenario prompts rebalancing the mix of soft and hard skill sets with much greater care, and hire young sales and marketing professionals, accordingly to give shape to it. This process should commence now, as the present makes way for the future. This is so important because, the current trend of tweaking with many digital tools and devices mostly as interfaces, or for complementing in-person product detailing or for better field management, or even to draw up marketing and sales plans, may not yield the desired business results any longer, even for survival, as we move on.

Becoming digital natives?

According to the 2015 A.T. Kearney Report titled, “Time for Pharma to Dive into Digital”, pharma sales and marketing professionals must also become digital natives, providing content that is both up-to- date and appropriate for multiple digital channels. Moreover, they will have to be familiar with advanced analytics to monitor and measure actual consumption pattern, besides capturing in real time a huge sample of relevant data for deeper customer insights.

The new normal:

One of the biggest challenges would be in the approach to content development and management. Creating an interactive detailing toolbox for truly responsive customer engagement, requires a good deal of thought and quite complex coding. This would necessitate centralization of marketing content production, which is traditionally decentralized in many sales and marketing organizations. Similarly, the major focus of the sales force will shift from maximizing physician-call rates, to becoming a team of digital communication specialists, and coordinators who would ensure that the right channels are used at the right time.

As the November 2016 Accenture Report titled, ‘The Rebirth of The Pharmaceutical Sales Force’ underscores, the most successful pharmaceutical sales teams in the future will be those willing to define and servicing customers in new ways… and will use digital advances to change the conversation, and position themselves as committed to helping physicians improve health outcomes.

This expected change, I reckon, will put in place a new normal for pharma sales and marketing success in the years ahead.

In conclusion:

Young aspirants wanting to make a career in the pharma industry, may wish to take note of this evolving trend of inevitable changes. They may wish to get well-considered views on the same of a couple of experts’ having no conflict of interest, for a careful and independent personal assessment. These budding strivers should realize that the final actionable decision on developing requisite hard and soft skill sets for a successful take off in their respective working lives, should preferably be taken only by themselves, and none else.

An August 2015 article of McKinsey & Company titled, “The road to digital success in pharma” articulates that the pharma companies, though can play a central role in the digital revolution of healthcare, are running hard to keep pace with changes brought about by digital technology. But soon there may not be any other option left for achieving business excellence.

While the nation is taking strides to transform itself into ‘Digital India’, the pharma companies operating in the country can’t possibly afford to remain far behind. Willy-nilly, they will soon need to realign their business processes accordingly, as there may not be any further scope for individual pharma players to operate within the same old cocoon of tradition bound activities, and still survive.

To meet the new and tougher demands for excellence in pharma sales and marketing, the urgent need of the changing time lies squarely outside the box. To usher in a requisite transformation in the current business model, it calls for a series of well-calibrated, much researched, and bold steps – skillfully rebalancing the crucial soft and hard skill sets, achievable within a realistic and self-determined timeframe.

By: Tapan J. Ray

Recomposing Notes of Pharma Marketing Playbook

Posted on June 20, 2016 by Tapan Ray

The global management guru Peter Drucker, in one of his management classics – “The Practice of Management”, published in 1954, that created the discipline of modern management practices, had underscored the following:

“As the core purpose of any business is to create a customer, a business has two, and only two functions, marketing and innovation. Only these two produce business results. All the rest are costs.”

The Harvard Business Review also had rated ‘The Practice of Management’ as Drucker’s best book on the managerial profession. Far more crisp than the larger compendium on Management, nicely balanced between precept and example, this book is eminently practical yet of genuine intellectual breadth. If Drucker’s work holds anything of immediate value for you, you will most likely find it here…”

Thus, Peter Drucker’s above concept is so fundamental that the pharmaceutical business can’t be any exception to it, in any way. That the old customers need to be retained, and the new customers are to be created on an ongoing basis, even in the modern times, still remain a basic requirement.

Nevertheless, the marketing process of doing so needs to change, according to the changing market dynamics. Continuation of playing the same notes from the grand old marketing playbook, with minor alterations here or there, would no longer suffice to keep pace with the changing market, and to effectively address the new stakeholders’ needs and wants.

Need to recompose notes of the playbook:

Both the current processes of pharma marketing and the patent claim for any type of drug innovation that the majority of the global pharma companies is currently following, have become highly contentious over a period of time, to say the least.

Even otherwise, in my view, both these processes have already hit the ceiling of the famous ‘law of diminishing returns’, where very simply put, the level of profits or benefits gained is less than the amount of money or energy invested.

Therefore, the question that comes up: Are the notes of the pharma marketing and innovation playbook fair, right, inclusive, and sustainable? However, in this article, I shall focus only on contemporary pharma marketing, and the opportunities that are coming up along with waves of changes in the business environment.

An example of ‘Change the logo’ saga:

Going by my personal experience, I have worked with many pharma marketing professionals, some of whom are still working in the industry. Post recruitment in the new company, having gone through a rigorous screening process, most of them would probably give a similar feedback that an anonymous quote captures as follows:

“The optimist says, ‘the glass is half full’; The pessimist says, ‘The glass is half empty.’ The marketing consultant says, ‘The glass needs resizing and a different logo.”

On a lighter vein, I am using below an example of one ‘change the logo’ approach. This is just one of many of my real life experiences. This may give you a panoramic view of how things generally are. The stretching of the same old marketing paradigm beyond its elastic limit is rather common, of course, with some sporadic digital tweaking. Nonetheless, the notes in the marketing playbook remain almost the same, producing the same tunes for some, and noise for many others.

This ‘logo change’ saga may sound quite familiar to many of my ex-colleagues of not so distant past. This approach exemplifies the limitations of a new recruit for a senior position to identify the core issues that would lead to the organization’s performance improvement.

It does not surprise me at all, when I find some top managements, who were an integral part of that selection process, promptly buying these shallow, and at the most peripheral ideas. It is quite evident that some of these top management members also suffer from similar analytical and management myopia. It is needless to mention that such things usually happen during the ‘honeymoon’ period’ of the new recruits.

Accordingly, the ‘logo change’ takes place in no time, paying a huge sum to the creative agency. Commensurate hype is simultaneously created around the new logo, backed by massive efforts to communicate its ‘ethereal design’ to as many targets as possible, often with no tangible outcome. Alongside, attempts are also made to change as many old things as possible, generating a multitude of seemingly high-voltage activities, though the performance on the ground remains unchanged, or rather deteriorates.

I fully understand, there is nothing wrong in changing anything, including a logo, that is not working or has outlived its time. However, when this assumes the top priority of a new and a top recruit, immediately after assuming office with a new responsibility, it somewhat doesn’t gel, and very often does not achieve the desired purpose.

Pharma marketing over-dependent on the likes of ‘Surrogate CMEs’?

Today, when there is a need to hear more from all the major stakeholders, one sided ‘telling my story’ mostly to the doctors continues to occupy a major part of pharma marketing, besides company sponsored or allegedly surrogate ‘Continuing Medical Education (CME)’ even for old branded generics.

The preparation of a canned brand communication in India is a routine pharma marketing process, with a plethora of avoidable and unproductive activities. This canned message is delivered to the doctors, usually through the Medical Representatives, conforming to a structured ‘tool-kit’, and heavily backed by free samples and gifts.

A large number of doctors too, continue to take this process, particularly in India, as an unavoidable routine, and also an integral part of their professional activities. It is widely believed, and frequently reported that the ‘magic wand’ for large scale prescription generation for pharma brands lies somewhere else.

Apparently, it is where the financial relationship between the doctors’ and pharma players is usually built and strengthened. One allegation is, in the garb of so called ‘CMEs’, even for old branded generic or as some folks call these as ‘classic’ brands, this financial relationship continues to thrive.

This gives rise to a suspicion in many, as to why pharma marketing is so over-dependent on the so called ‘CMEs’, even for old branded generics in India.

The vicious circle continues:

When the financial relationship of various hues, between the drug players and the doctors take the center stage, which pharma company has a deeper pocket counts. More expenses incurred in such relationship building process, may consequently drive the drug prices higher. In this situation, the patients get literally caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, where the Governments are compelled to intervene, as has started happening now in many countries.

In tandem, the pressure on performance keeps mounting on the marketers from the same top management, ultimately repeating the old vicious circle, where it may not be the ‘logo change’ that time, but another different sets of the same genre of hectic activities would commence, in pursuit of the illusive sweet smell of business success.

Recompose notes of the marketing playbook:

Even today, the marketing communication in the pharma industry remains primarily a monologue. Many training programs are currently sold to the industry to make this process a dialogue, as the Medical Representatives detail their products to the doctors.

However, on the ground, as I witnessed even in the last month while seating incognito in the clinics of some doctor friends, that the practice of monologue continues reflecting a great visible hurry in the product communicators’ end. Some from large pharma companies were using electronic gadgets, instead of a usual spirally bound product detailing folder, but their overall communication approaches were monologue too.

Thus, the modern age pharma marketers need to recompose the notes of their marketing playbook, soon. Some of the areas of active consideration may include the following:

A. Brand messages to be “pulled” by doctors, not “pushed” by marketers:

An interesting worldwide survey of 228 senior global marketing executives was conducted in February 2006 by the Economist Intelligence Unit, in co-operation with Google. The study highlights the need to transform the marketing communication platforms from a monologue to a more intense process of engagement, through effective dialogue with the stakeholders.

In this new environment, the relevance is more important than repetition, and marketing messages should be “pulled” by the consumer rather than “pushed” by the marketer. This calls for a transformation of the internal marketing organization. All the deliverables of pharma marketers’ must have a relevance to time, and measurable, with total accountability for top and bottom line growth in the areas of responsibility.

In the consumer products’ industry, the last decade has witnessed several innovative two-way marketing “conversations” between the customers and some of the world’s leading consumer brands. Driven by a confluence of innovation, competition and big shifts in consumer behavior, the dialogue between brands and their customers is replacing the traditional marketing monologue, the study observes.

Some recent developments:

In this regard, on Jun 2016, an IBM News Release announced that ‘The Weather Company’, an IBM Business has developed an industry-first capability in which consumers will be able to interact with IBM Watson through advertising, by being able to ask questions via voice or text and receive relevant information about the product or offering. It can create a one-to-one connection with the consumer, that can be personal, relevant and valuable; and can scale across millions of interactions and touch points. This digital tool can also help the marketers uncover consumer and product insights faster than ever before, revealing connections previously invisible to human data scientists, IBM claims.

For example, an anti-allergy brand could enable visitors to Weather.com to ask questions about whether the product is appropriate for children or what sort of side effects it might cause, as WSJ mentioned in its news item of the same date.

However, only the FMCG companies, such as, Unilever, Campbell Soup Co. and GSK Healthcare have, so far, reportedly signed on with Weather Co. to start running Watson-powered ads on both desktop and mobile devices this year.

According to another 2014 report of IMS Health on Social Media, among the top 50 pharmaceutical companies, more than half do not engage with consumers or patients through social media on healthcare-related topics. The top 3 pharma companies in this regard are: Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithkline (GSK), and Novo Nordisk.

Thus, in the pharma industry, the old tradition, by and large, prevails. This scenario, I reckon, signals a pressing need to recompose the notes of the pharma marketing playbook, in general, and very soon.

B. Studying the future digital trends and customize:

To find out about what digital trends to expect in future, the February 2006 survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit had asked survey takers and executives about the online trends they learned during the previous 12 months from their children or other young people. The top three new trends came out as follows:

Social networking,
Podcasting
Multi-player video games

These are just examples, individual pharma marketers would need to take calls about the relevance of specific digital tools and trends relevant to their business and customize them accordingly.

C. Two important marketing tactics proposed:

It is becoming quite evident now, across the world, that with the stakeholders-mix and the traditional doctor-focused “push” messaging delivered mainly through a large sales force coverage, are not generating commensurate a return on investments.

While this approach still remains somewhat relevant for the doctors, one needs to find out what is happening to effectively engage the other important stakeholders. For example, what is happening to those patients who are seeking meaningful engagement through various digital platforms for healthcare?

Recently, the Wharton School, Google and McKinsey & Company teamed up to write a new e-book entitled ‘Pharma 3D’, which proposes the following two important marketing tactics:

To reach patients, pharma companies need to leverage broader engagement models through alternative digital channels (including wearable, online, and social media).

Pharma companies can no longer rely solely on their relationships with physicians; they also need to engage with other influencers, like online communities and social networks.

D. Pharma marketing organizations may consider doing 3 things for success:

The authors of ‘Pharma 3D’ suggested that the pharma marketing organizations may consider doing the following three things really well, for success:

They Discover the behaviors, beliefs and needs of the people they are marketing to.
They Design experiences relevant to the people they are marketing to.
They Deliver those experiences consistently, superbly, and efficiently.

Conclusion:

Though Peter Drucker had said long ago that marketing and innovation are two most critical functions of any business and only these two produce business results, in the overall pharma marketing activities a wide gap between the modern marketing realities and the current marketing practices still exist, rather glaringly.

It is true that digital tools are now being selectively used by some pharma companies, these largely fall in the area of digitizing the manual functions, with some add on gimmickry, and glamor quotient built into it.

In my view, pharma companies, especially in India, should no longer rely solely on building relationships with the physicians. Their top marketers also need to directly engage with all other crucial influencers, including the expert groups, online communities, and the social media, whenever required, leveraging the broader stakeholder engagement models.

The old pharma marketing playbook is slowly, but surely going out of sync with the stark market realities of date. So are the mindsets of a large section of the pharma marketers. It is now high time for the top management to create an appropriate marketing organization, and then encourage it composing the new notes for a contemporary, and a more relevant marketing playbook, jettisoning the old one, for good.

By: Tapan J. Ray