Tag Archives: Tapan Ray

Mindset Change: Now A Bigger Factor in The Rise And Fall of Pharma Corporations

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Currently, in the pharma industry across the world, almost everyone is talking, thinking, and trying to implement several significant changes – just to be in sync with the changing customer needs and market expectations. As Covid vaccination process gathers momentum with markets gradually opening up, many envisage even much bigger changes. Such changes encompass, medium to long-term strategic thinking process, re-engineering business operations, customer-centric new value creation and value delivery mechanism in the new normal.

Several pharma players have also started expressing it explicitly, even on their websites. One such example is a Novartis communique of January 21, 2021. It says: COVID-19 was a catalyst for change in healthcare during 2020 – an accelerator for digital health. As the virus spread exponentially, the world was forced to work virtually, wherever possible. Digital solutions were needed fast – not just to support remote working, but to keep the very fabric of business, healthcare, education, and essential services in operation. The need to cope with multi-faceted pandemic–triggered challenges of change, prompted the rise of digital health as the only viable option of the time, as it were. In the following months thereafter, it has set some emerging trends for digital innovation to meet global healthcare needs, which will continue through 2021.

The communique underscored: “For Novartis and many other pharmaceutical companies, the challenge was not just to enable employees to continue working, but to ensure that medicines reached patients as needed, and that healthcare professionals (HCPs) had the information they required to support their patients’ questions and needs. It was also essential to make sure that clinical trials remained on schedule and the development pipeline continued.”

Similar mindset was exhibited by many other pharma companies when the chips were down, and Covid vaccines were under development or just had hit the markets. Its impact, got reflected in The Harris Poll Survey of February 2021, which reported a peak positive rating of 62% for the image of the pharma industry – an incredible turnaround from 32% of just the previous year.

Therefore, the question, arises – with Covid vaccination initiatives gathering steam what will major pharma players, both local and global, possibly do? Will they use the pandemic period experience as a springboard – for more innovation of all kinds to reap a sustainable harvest – with an ongoing customer-centric mindset? Or they will try to get back to the old normal – with self-serving interests – till it stings – very hard. This article will explore that area.

What prompts the above questions?

The above questions are prompted by the fact that since then, pharma industry’s image slipped from a peak positive rating of 62% in February as the vaccine rolled out and then dipping to 60% in May and now at 56%, according to The Harris Poll Surveys. Thus, many wonders – ‘is it time to ask whether the halo around COVID-19 vaccine and treatment innovation is gone?

Further, some recent instances on pharma’s reverting to self-serving interests, could also play some role in this regard. Interestingly, notwithstanding pharma’s image going south after achieving a peak of 62%, the ghost of unreasonable drug pricing appears to haunt again.

As an illustration, amid Covid pandemic, the public perception that pharma companies’ business practices changed – from mostly self-serving interest orientated – to meeting customer value and expectations, did not last long. Several actions akin to pre-Covid period, went against the above perception. These include, Covid vaccine prices and Biogen’s $56,000 (Rs.40 lakhs/year in India) price tag for its recently approved Alzheimer drug – Aduhelm that requires monthly infusions with no clear limit on treatment duration. No wonder, Alzheimer’s Association, reportedly, finds this price simply unacceptable,’ as it further “complicates and jeopardizes sustainable access to this treatment” and could further deepen health equity issues.

I reckon, how pharma companies conduct their strategic business operations from now on will possibly reveal the nature of Covid-triggered changes, if at all, within the industry. Industry watchers generally believe the majority will follow the digital transformation path with a new organizational culture, and an agile mindset to always be in sync with stakeholder values and expectations. However, there are also some, who want to mostly revert to the pre-pandemic business culture, practices, and mindset. It will be interesting to know what some top ‘Think Tank’ of the pharma industry envisage.

What some top pharma ‘Think Tank’ envisage: 

Notwithstanding some recent developments as mentioned above, which could be outliers, some top pharma think tanks are quite optimistic about the continuity of Covid triggered positive changes in the industry. For example, in an interview with Pharmaceutical Executive, published on May 19, 2021, a current Amgen Board Member and former CEO of several global pharma majors - Fred Hassan, made some profound statements.

He reiterated, ‘COVID-19 has accelerated the ongoing shift to enterprise-level digital transformation across Fortune 500s.’ Fred further emphasized, “the impact of digital in helping transform the customer experience or to improve efficiencies, is now a bigger factor in the rise and fall of corporations. Astute C-suite executives recognize the opportunity to not only enable, but to also empower their teams to quickly embrace digital as a differentiating tool.” 

A journey – not just a destination:

The above interview further underscored – ‘Digital transformation is a journey — not just a destination.’ The speed of transition to digital must be accompanied by sustainability. It should take all stakeholders on board in the journey of change. The key requirement is to ‘actively energizing the entire organization so that people internalize the digital mindset to help empower their customers, their own company and themselves, as individuals.’

More importantly, ‘Dithering around scaling past the initial digital pilots, is rapidly becoming an unacceptable option,’ as Fred Hassan cautioned. Which is why, while the C-suite needs to actively lead during a digital transformation, they must leverage the commitment of their middle management to motivate front line managers to keep following through with passion, courage, and tenacity. This is because: ‘Digital transformation is a journey – not just a destination.’

Indian pharma suddenly had to ride the wave of digital transformation:

The unprecedented pandemic literally compelled most Indian pharma companies of all sizes, to ride the digital wave in business, mostly for survival – to keep the business operations running. However, with the passage of time, Covid related disruptions started accelerating their journey for digital transformation – at a varying pace, though. This was also reported in the KPMG paper – ‘India’s healthcare sector transformation in the post-COVID-19 era,’ published on February 01, 2021.

The paper also articulated that this unprecedented health crisis “have not just laid bare the myriad challenges and gaps in our health system, but also highlighted the importance of investing in ‘well-being’ at both personal and system levels. It has ushered in an era of digital and technological innovations and advancements that is expected to help communities fulfil those requirements at a much faster pace.”

The pandemic has also accelerated the pace of evolution of ‘Smart Healthcare’ in India. This is also not a destination, but a journey with the digital transformation process, where changing or flexible mindset of the leadership, is the catalyst for change.

‘Smart Healthcare’ is also a digital journey:

As more and more health care customers are entering the digital space, triggered mainly by Covid appropriate behavioral norms, Virtual Healthcare initiatives are also increasing manifold, backed by robust supports from the Government. As a result, several integrated ‘Smart Healthcare’ platforms like Telemedicine, are now, reportedly, being, considered as the “Natural evolution of healthcare in the digital world.” Specifically, in the Indian scenario of low doctor to patient ratio, telemedicine has the potential to be one of the frontline health care value delivery systems, in the “new normal.”

Capturing early signals for such changes in the market trends, and leveraging the same to create a win-win situation for both the company and stakeholders, would necessitate a changing or flexible pharma leadership mindset. The reason being the digital transformation of an organization is an ongoing process with increasing rate of obsolescence of digital tools, platforms, and applications. Let me illustrate this point taking ‘Smart Healthcare’ as an example.

‘A bigger factor in the rise and fall of corporations:’

In today’s digital environment any transformation initiative is a continuous journey, and not a one-time exercise. Digital transformation of an organization – if, as and when pursued for business excellence in the new normal, would demand, at least, two big leadership commitments. These constitute – one, to continuously exceed stakeholder expectations in value delivery, and the other – a changing mindset that always puts customer perceived value on a higher pedestal than a company’s self-perceived value, both for product and services.

For example, for telehealth to carve out its niche as a dominant force in health care after the pandemic ends, will depend on how successfully virtual health care is humanized that will allow physicians and patients to build and maintain trusting relationships. These issues were well deliberated in Harvard Business Review article – ‘3 Ways to Humanize the Virtual Health Care Experience,’ published on March 25, 2021.

The paper concluded by emphasizing, the future rate of adoption of telehealth will ‘heavily depend on its ability to support a trusting relationship between patients and physicians. As provider organizations choose telehealth technologies and digital health companies develop new tools, they must keep the core human needs of both patients and physicians front and center.’

Conclusion:

The above examples clearly point out that any digital transformation process, be it of a corporation or of a system, such as telehealth, is a journey and not a destination. To successfully leverage the benefits of moving into a digital frontier would call for a changing or a flexible mindset of the provider or its leader.

This requirement undoubtedly, therefore, is ‘a bigger factor in the rise and fall of corporations,’ or any digital application, platform, or a system. Which is why, as many believe: ‘pharma still needs to be on its front foot and pushing forward,’ in the new normal. Going back to the traditional practices of the old normal is not an option, any longer.

By: Tapan J. Ray     

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

 

 

Pharma’s Digital Initiatives In India: A Missing Link

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An interesting study – designed to investigate the challenges that Health and Human Services (HHS) organizations face in implementing digital and data solutions, stands out today – for many reasons. One such being, this ‘multi-country survey’ project team had no inkling about the pandemic when the project was undertaken.

This study was conducted by a research team from Imperial College London’s Institute of Global Health Innovation (IGHI), and was sponsored by EY. The survey comprises of more than 2,000 global HHS professionals – from India, Australia, Italy, UAE, the UK and the US. 359 respondents were from India.

The research passed through the phase when Covid related disruptions was about to put HHS providers through the most extreme stress test in living memory. ‘While the outbreak was catastrophic in its effects, it presented the researchers with an exceptional opportunity to study the sector’s behavior during a pivotal moment,’ the paper noted.

From this perspective, today’s article will explore, from various different sources, across the world, how Covid-triggered rapid development and adoption of digital solutions are in the process of making a paradigm shift in the healthcare space. It spans across – health care service providers, its users, and practitioners – including pharma industry and the tech-solution developers.

Consequently, the question arises, would healthcare industry’s innovative spirit of 2020 is robust enough for taking a quantum leap in this space, as we move on. That space will span across – conceptualization and development of new health care products and services, alongside their consumption pattern and consumer behavioral dynamics. And, right up to the adoption of cutting-edge digital technology for commensurate delivery mechanisms. Let me start with some key findings in this area from the above report.

Some key findings – Global and India:

The findings of the Report titled, ‘Embracing digital: is COVID-19 the catalyst for lasting change?’ published on January 13, 2021, ferreted out some interesting facts, with details. These encompass both global and Indian scenario, in this area.

Some key findings – Global:

  • Pre-pandemic – just 18% of HHS providers had managed to embed digital tools in the way they work – mostly, due to lack of funds, regulatory restrictions, and risk aversion. However, the pandemic outbreak swept away many of these barriers, as 62% of organizations have now started using digital technologies and data solutions, globally.
  • 48% organizations are planning to continue investing in technology during the next three years, with 33% expecting more than 50%, and 19% more than 100% increase in investment.
  • While phone consultations are being offered by 81 % of HHS organizations (up from 39 % before the pandemic), 71 % of organizations offering video consultations (up from 22 % before the pandemic).
  • Respondents’ top objectives for future investment towards rapid adoption of digital solutionsinclude, transforming ways of working and service delivery, improving quality of care, reducing the administrative load, enabling better communications, and streamlining work processes.
  • However, 47% of respondents think, the introduction of digital and data solutions was a temporary measure to address challenges during the pandemic.

Some key findings – India:

The Covid-19 pandemic triggered fast acceleration of the adoption of digital technologies by the HHS in India, as well.

  • 51% of respondents from India reported that their respective organizations have increased the use of digital technologies and data solutions since the Covid-19 outbreak.
  • Increased staff productivity reported for 74 % of respondents’ organizations with 75% reporting that digital solutions have been effective in delivering better outcomes for patients and service users.
  • Remote consultations, such as, phone and video consultations have witnessed a greater increase in India than the global average. 86 % of Indian organizations are now offering phone consultation (up from 48 % before pandemic) and 83 % for video consultations (up from 33 % before pandemic).
  • Around three fourth of the respondents in India reported positive experiences with digital technologies and data solutions with the number of people using online consultations in India recording a threefold increase.

This encouraging trend and pattern needs to be consolidated, analyzed, and leveraged – for sharper actionable insights for the development of more contemporary products and services to delight the pharma and health care stakeholders.

A key missing link in India:

The digital health transformation of India’s healthcare system during Covid pandemic was also captured in another article, published by Elsevier Connect on February 23, 2021. It reiterated, although the pandemic has made an overall detrimental impact impacted on India, ‘it has brought about an avalanche of positive changes, including the adoption of digital health technologies and significant changes to the way care is delivered.’ Looking ahead, ‘With the launch of national public health initiatives, India has an incredible opportunity to become a digital health leader,’ the paper predicted.

However, the author also pointed out, unambiguously, that the health care crisis caused by the pandemic has also brought to the fore a key missing link – the need for updated and near real-time availability of trusted information. This observation is more relevant now than ever before, especially considering India’s National Digital Health Mission (NDHM).

National Digital Health Mission – a new ambition:

While addressing the nation on August 15, 2020, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the National Digital Health Mission of India. He said in his speech, “From today, the national digital health mission will begin. It will revolutionize the Indian healthcare sector. Every Indian will be issued a health ID that will act like a healthcare account, storing details of all the tests done, existing diseases, diagnoses, medicines prescribed.”

The objectives of the mission are to establish a core digital health database, creating a system of Electronic Health Records (EHR) based on international standards, establish data ownership pathways, so that patients become the owner of their health records, and promoting health data analytics and medical research. This initiative by any standard, is expected to be a game changer, as and when it comes to fruition.

Subsequently, on June 25, 2020, the Union Ministry of Health, reportedly, wrote to the principal secretaries (health) of all states and union territories, asking them to extend full support to the NHA to create four registries — doctors, health infrastructure, health IDs and personal health records of patients. It also instructed the states to send the required details within the stipulated timeline without breaching the norms of data privacy.

Need to avoid any possible missing link in the NDHM:

However, the Harvard Business Review article, published on June 12, 2020, asserted that the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic not only presented a “mind-boggling array of challenges” exposed the limitations of the electronic health record (EHR) in helping physicians deliver care, especially in the United States.

It suggested: transformation of the EHR from an emphasis on a ‘person’s medical record’ – to an emphasis on their ‘plan for health’ and from a focus on ‘supporting clinical transactions’ to a focus on ‘delivering information’ to the provider and the patient, will be more meaningful.

Thus, it’s time for a new kind of EHR system in today’s perspective, as suggested by the HBR article, besides other domain experts. I am sure, competent authorities will take note of this transformation required in EHR initiatives to avoid any missing link in the new digital healthcare space in India.

As the above Elsevier Connect paper also observed, with the launch of national public health initiatives, such as, Ayushman Bharat and National Digital Health Mission (NDHM), India harbors an incredible opportunity to showcase its world class digital health ecosystem for all in the country.

To help fructify these projects, all key stakeholders – health care service providers, its users, and practitioners – including the pharma industry and the tech solution companies, need to get intimately involved with a common agenda in place. Falling behind may invite regrets, later.

Nonetheless, well before that – the common missing links in India - near real-time availability of credible data, trusted and verified information for adopting digital health for patients that will need to be provided by clinicians in a seamless manner, should be carefully identified and addressed.

New steps into digital healthcare are on the way:

Several new steps into digital healthcare have been taken in various countries of the world. One such initiative is ‘Internet Hospitals.’ These are basically an internet-medical-platform combining online and offline access for medical institutions to provide a variety of telehealth services directly to patients.

A Deloitte paper – ‘Internet Hospitals in China: The new step into digital healthcare,’ published on March 16, 2021 says: ‘Online hospitals are typically offshoots of offline medical organizations. The combination of Internet with health care will drive the medical industry’s transformation into a health service provider from a health care supplier, distributing resources equally and enhancing efficiency,’ moving ‘towards future smart health care.’

Conclusion:

Covid-19 has created a new focus on the digital health ecosystem in India, for accelerating the use of digital technology to radically advance health care systems and save lives. Today, many are experiencing that, big data, analytics, artificial intelligence, remote learning, and data inter-connectivity, can make a real difference to the work of HHS professionals in India.

Embracing digital with accelerated speed during the pandemic, has reportedly started making a significant positive impact on the cycle of the patient’s clinical assessment, treatment, and monitoring. With increasing use, it would reduce the cost of health care, improve patient access to affordable treatment and care services, when many patients’ journey for disease treatment will start online, and get directed to the optimal care setting either physically or virtually.

The article on health-tech, published in the Fortune India on February 20, 2021, has aptly concluded: ‘Eventually health technology infusion in the Indian healthcare ecosystem will be the route to enhance patient-centric healthcare accessibility, affordability, and sustainability. The advent of 5G technology in the country is poised to further catalyze this momentum.’ This, in turn, will facilitate ushering in more game changing steps into digital healthcare, creating a new ecosystem, greater awareness and a keen desire to remain healthy for all.

Thus, from the GIGO perspective, as defined by the Cambridge Dictionary, I reckon, in pharma’s digital initiatives, especially in India, a key factor needs to be carefully addressed. This is – fathoming existence of any missing link involving near real-time availability of trusted information and credible data generation, which could indeed be a great spoiler of any painstaking digital adoption project.

By: Tapan J. Ray     

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

 

 

Pharma Marketing: The New Normal: Challenges of Change

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A lot has changed in healthcare marketing prompted by the Covid pandemic. Apace with these, lots of old problems continue to remain very much the same. The aforesaid was observed in a recent article, published by WARC, on May 21, 2021. Although, this analysis was done in the United States, it has a global footprint, as the disruptions are broadly similar, with a varying degree from country to country.

Healthcare marketing leadership, including the pharma industry in India, presumably, is taking notes of these critical changes, along with their degree of impact. These are the basics for required responses in India, while managing its snowballing effect, both global and local.

Today’s article will provide a bird’s eye view of this area, to encourage marketers continue with their ongoing deep-dive data gathering exercise. Then, comes sieving the ‘catch’ with cerebral power – before using modern analytics to draw meaningful inferences for strategy making.

Some macro-changes stand out:

Some of these widely visible changes, also captured in the above WARC article, include the following:

  • An emerging trend of re-orientation of the healthcare industry around patient outcomes.
  • Need to realize that health and safety are the currency that can be used to rebuild consumer trust across categories.
  • Increasing need to build deeper emotional connections with customers, going beyond product-oriented features, benefits, and intrinsic brand values.
  • Providing healthcare consumers more data and behavioral science-driven, personalized solutions to their problems – to drive better outcomes.

More people are realizing that: ‘Healthcare, after all, is about life and death, and those stakes have been tragically reaffirmed during the pandemic,’ as the above paper underscores. Thus, affordable “health and safety will continue to be a currency that brands can use to re-establish trust with anxious consumers,” the author reiterates. To steer a company in that direction the marketers need to create a pathway for success by joining several emerging dots in the new normal. Let give just a flavor of these emerging dots with three examples, as below.

‘The end point – the price point’ - re-emerging as a core value expectation: 

Interestingly, ‘The end point – the price point’ for quality treatment outcomes is re-emerging as one of the core values and expectations of the consumers, especially facing an uncertain future that everybody is witnessing today. The health system is also transitioning from ‘pay for healthcare product and services’ – to ‘pay for integrated value-based care offerings.’ In the changing environment, many pharma players seem to have realized that customers are no longer interested in paying for brand values that serve mostly self-serving interests of the respective companies.

More healthcare customers are digitally savvy now:

Today’s brand values need to be in sync with what the perceived value of the customers, enhancing their end-to-end experience of the disease treatment process, more than ever before. For example, increasing number of patients are now choosing between F2F – in-clinic consultations and remote or virtual consultations, for non-life-threatening ailments. Some often do data-driven online assessment for different treatment value offerings, against what these would cost to them.

Purpose driven corporate branding is making better impact:

Pharma industry’s purpose-driven branding initiatives, in tandem with creating robust corporate brands, are drawing much greater public attention amid the pandemic. The list includes both the original product developers and their contract manufacturers. Even in India, many held with esteem – Corporates, such as, AstraZeneca and Serum Institute of India (SII) for Covishield, or Bharat Biotech for Covaxin.

The same thing has happened world-wide with many other Covid vaccine and drug manufacturers, such as, Pfizer, Johnson &Johnson, Moderna, Eli-Lilly, Roche, and others. Interestingly, from the available data in the cyberspace or from word-of-mouth, several people have also inferred about comparative value offerings of each. At least 4 Covid vaccine manufacturers are showing-up in this year’s ‘Conscious Brands 100’ list of 2021. This is, apparently, unprecedented.

Demonstration of ‘patients’-problem solving skill’ with resilience pays: 

As we all know by now, the drug industry as such – across the world, instead getting overwhelmed by the problem, pulled up socks and rolled the sleeves to find out scientific means of saving as many lives as possible, soonest.

Almost overnight, repurposing old drugs for Covid treatment and development Covid vaccines, racing against time, were initiated. The entire healthcare industry including, Medical Diagnostic and Devices companies and others, did not fall behind to offer reliable tests for Covid diagnosis, and other life support systems and equipment.

Alongside, Omnichannel digital campaigns of many companies, and favorable news reports amid the pandemic, made people realize the stellar role of the industry in saving lives and livelihoods – from the Covid menace.

Such examples include Pfizer’s What to know About Coronavirus webpage; Merck Inc’s Podcast: How Merck is looking at past epidemics and science to respond to the coronavirus outbreak; and India’s Mankind Pharma’s Mask My India digital campaign. It captures the stories of heroes, who are setting examples and doing more than their call of duty during the COVID-19 pandemic in India. The campaign also spreads the message that ‘together we can all fight with deadly Coronavirus.’

Some pandemic-triggered India-specific challenges:

According to the April 2021 KPMG paper, Covid pandemic has brought to the fore some of the following challenges for the India pharma industry, some due to years of neglect:

  • Fragile public health care system and laboratory testing infrastructure and supplies of life support items. This primarily due to one of the lowest Government spend (1.56% of the GDP) on health. As a result, India currently ranks 155th out of 167 countries, in terms of hospital bed availability (Human Development Report 2020) with just 5 beds availability per 10, 000 Indians.
  • Changes in health care consumption pattern – especially with the increasing use of e-health or telehealth, besides, online ordering of medicines through e-pharmacies.

Apart from these, it’s also noteworthy – how pharma demonstrated its healthcare ‘problem solving’ skill to save billions of lives from deadly Covid-19 and its mutants, attracting unprecedented kudos from all corners. To keep this initiative going – meeting customers’ core expectations, in my view, could indeed be yet another challenge of change.

Conclusion:

There won’t be any ‘one size fits all’ sort of solution to address such challenges of change. Neither is all company’s challenges the same, in a relative yardstick. Each company would, therefore, need to understand what the pandemic triggered changes in market dynamics and customer expectations mean to them to pursue sustainable business excellence.

Thus, each player would require to elaborately make data-based assessment and analysis, to figure out where they currently stand, so far are the pandemic-triggered changes are concerned. With similar analysis, they should also try to fathom what are their customers’ specific value expectations, which may now go beyond the value that their brands can deliver, but critical for branding success.

Accordingly, a value delivery strategy to be worked out, taking all concerned on-board – with a carefully crafted employee and customer engagement blueprint – and mostly Omnichannel digital platforms.

To successfully navigate through the challenges of change, pharma marketers need to wear a different thinking cap. They would also need to realize that treating pharma marketing as an intrinsic product value delivery system, and by just doing digitally whatever traditionally used to be done manually, may not help generate an adequate return in the new normal. From this perspective, giving shape to a robust, comprehensive, integrated and Omnichannel digital strategic game plan for the organization, is the need of the hour.

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.

Being Eclectic – A Pharma Leadership Quality In The New Normal

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It’s no-brainer that since the onset of Covid pandemic, digitalization initiative of many pharma companies in critical facets of business operations, has reached a new high. The process is now fast accelerating with the adoption of avant-garde ideas, and scalable digital tools and platforms. Some of these initiatives may be incremental in nature, but several others possess game changing potential in delivering business outcomes.

This period of transformation is also an opportune time for pharma leadership to be more eclectic, while working out strategies to gain business momentum – outpacing the competition. As is being revealed, strategic inputs from a diverse range of sources – often from totally different areas, to meet fast changing customer needs and expectations, would immensely help in the new normal.

In this article, I shall argue on the need of being eclectic for pharma leadership to gain competitive edge, especially in the trying times. I shall elaborate this point with the example of an eclectic idea – Gamification. If used where it ought to be, eclectic ideas may help organizations to successfully navigate through unprecedented disruptions, especially, caused by Covid pandemic, in various critical areas of pharma business.

Gamification – an eclectic strategic tool for pharma:

Gamification – an eclectic strategic tool, ‘incentivizes people’s engagement and activities to drive results with game-like mechanics.’ Various companies, across the industries, are leveraging this technique for greater effectiveness in different business domains. This includes, driving employee motivation for sustainable performance excellence.

I discussed ‘Gamification in Pharma’ in this blog – about a year before the onset of the pandemic. However, its potential is being increasingly realized with virtual engagement becoming more common during Covid pandemic. Several drug companies are now imbibing Gamification techniques to offer greater value in several areas of business. These include, among others, chronic disease management, adherence to the prescribed dosage regimen, and also for training and development.

The core purpose and value: 

The core purpose of Gamification is to effectively engage with both internal and external customers of an organization, with clearly captured details of their changing needs and expectations in the new normal. Game mechanics are basically the rules and rewards that build the foundation of game play. Game dynamics involve a set of emotions, behaviors and desires found in game mechanics that help foster engagement and motivate participants.

The broad process of Gamification entails integration of game mechanics on various existing platforms. These include, a website, online community, learning tools - providing target audiences with proactive directives and feedback through game mechanics that lead to the accomplishments of business goals and objectives.

According to BI Worldwide - a global engagement agency, ‘Gamification is about driving engagement to influence business results.’ When people participate and engage with gamification initiatives, they learn the best way to interact with the business, its products, services and in thereby in the brand building process.

It further says, the business value of Gamification doesn’t end with the participant. Engagement with game mechanics provides insightful data that can help influence marketing campaigns, platform utilization and performance goals. Every employee or customer interaction gives a better sense of where a participant is spending their time and what activities drive interest.

Application of ‘Gamification’ in pharma is a decade old now:

Gamification isn’t totally a new concept in the pharma industry. It was successfully tried by some pharma majors, at least, about a decade ago. Let me give below just a couple of examples from that period to get a feel of it:

Way back in 2011, Pfizer created the Back in Play game for European patients, to boost knowledge of ankylosing spondylitis, a disease that causes inflammation in the spine and pelvis joints. Interestingly, the game delivered a simple healthcare message to a notoriously difficult to reach audience 38 million times.

In 2012, Boehringer Ingelheim launched its pharma game – ‘Syrum’ on Facebook platform. This particular initiative is considered as an evolution in the pharma industry’s use of the social media platform. It gave the Company a new tool to educate and expand the knowledge of the general public about the challenges of its business. It also helped to improve disease awareness, besides allowing the company to conduct its market research.

Besides these two, other interesting Gamification initiatives taken around that period include, Zec Attack (Novartis), Silence Your Rooster (Sanofi).

Its potential in pharma marketing – and what to avoid:

Applying game mechanics to healthcare marketing could also help ensure that patients are activated, educated, and engaged throughout the duration of their care, driving both – business performance and patient outcomes. This observation was made in an article on ‘Gamification’, published in the Pharmaceutical Executive on February 28, 2019. Another article titled, ‘Gamification is Serious Business’ also reiterates, ‘Research and case studies from both the academic and healthcare space bring forth ample evidence that games can improve patient compliance and healthcare outcomes.’

However, if any pharma marketer enters into the gamification arena with greater focus on the desired outcome than on patient goals, or the games themselves don’t excite, engage, and motivate the users, the efforts may not succeed.

Gamified e-learning helps during Covid pandemic:

An interesting study on ‘The Impact of COVID-19 on Learning,’ conducted by find courses, noted some interesting points. A few of which, are as follows:

  • Covid pandemic is fueling an unprecedented interest and opportunity for many people to acquire more job knowledge and skills, mainly to protect their future in uncertain times.
  • In tandem, people’s priorities when it comes to learning are also changing. Health-safety being at the forefront of many learners’ minds, they prefer mostly online courses, or heavily reduced classroom sizes - to maintain social distancing.

It has also been noted that many such learners often find virtual learning programs uninteresting and lackluster. Sensing this issue, many organizations, which include some pharma companies, are now using Gamification to augment learning effectiveness and build greater team harmony. Let me illustrate this point with an example from the pharma industry during the ongoing pandemic.

It’s more relevant in the new normal:

On June 04, 2021, Fierce Pharma featured an article on Pharma companies’ getting into gaming to boost retention, recall – and fun. There, it quoted a top official of the global pharma major AbbVie, who said: “Gamification has become more important and more impactful in the virtual environment.”  The honcho further said: “The pandemic showed we need this now more than ever. – It’s given an extra push to what has always been core to what we do, which is retention and recall in a fun and engaging manner.”

The report elaborates, AbbVie Canada uses gamification to onboard new reps, district managers and brand managers as well as for national sales meetings. Instead of studying or reading up, AbbVie asks employees to do the advance work through gamification tasks and then follows with more tasks after the meetings to boost retention and recall.

The Global Healthcare Gamification Market Report 2021-2027, also vindicates this point. As it reported, utilization of new healthcare gamification applications based on mobile tablets and laptops, witnessed a good growth during Covid pandemic. It reported, ‘Healthcare Gamification Market’ is expected to reach US$35,982.7 million in 2027 from US$ 3,072.5 million in 2019 with an estimated CAGR of 36.2% from 2020-2027.

Gamification is now being used by pharma in India, as well:

Abbott India is using elements of gamification in its customer services through a: care program. As the company Press Release says: ‘This new healthcare service is designed with games, quizzes and recognition programs to support patients, doctors and pharmacists throughout the entire healthcare journey, from awareness and prevention to motivation to get and stay healthy.’

In India, since quite some time, many well-known non-pharma companies are successfully using gamification for employee engagement and hiring.

Conclusion:

Unprecedented disruptions caused by Covid pandemic have considerably impacted the business operations of virtually every industry in India – just as other nations, across the globe. Since the onset of the pandemic, non-covid related medical centers, fitness institutions or gyms remained shut. Getting F2F – in clinic or hospital care, especially for non-Covid patients were also challenging for several reasons, with virtual care being the only options for many.

Interestingly, with most interactions and engagements – including learning, training and development programs going virtual, ‘Gamification’ initiatives started gathering wind on the sail, in some of those areas. This happened mainly because, organizations, institutions and people were driven to look for digital and app-based solutions for all needs and necessities, for a sustainable progress in an uncertain future.

An article on gamification, published in the PharmaPhorum on March 21, 2021, reiterated the same. It said, “Gamification” – adding game-like elements into non-game or real-world settings – has become a popular concept in the pharmaceutical, healthcare, and event industries, especially as virtual engagement becomes more common during COVID-19.’

With diverse applications and approaches, Gamification is quickly becoming a promising tool in various areas of pharma service and operations. These include, patient adherence, chronic disease management, preventive medicine, rehabilitation, besides better customer engagement, medical education, training, hiring and more.

From this perspective, in my view, pharma leadership now needs to more eclectic, and try using methods and approaches, such as, ‘Gamification’ – drawn from various other disciplines, in pursuit of excellence in the new normal.

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.

Unleashing Pharma’s New Potential In Changing Market Dynamics

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Several pharma majors have started pondering in this space. This is evident from several recent developments, both in India, and also in other places of the world. One such articulation can be heard from the very top of the domestic pharma industry, which could be a pacesetter for many others.

The founder and Managing Director’s Message of India’s top pharma company – Sun pharmaceuticals, was released to the media on June 02, 2021. This speech is a part of the company’s Annual Report 2019-20. It is indeed interesting from overall pharma business operations’ perspective in India amid Covid-19 pandemic. It is also in sync with what many of his global counterparts have also expressed in recent times. To give a sense of Sun Pharma Chief’s reading and understanding of the fast-changing business dynamics, I am quoting below a few critical points of his above message:

  • There is a gradual realization that the COVID-19 virus is here to stay and that all of us will have to learn to coexist with the virus till an effective treatment or vaccine becomes available.
  • There will be far-reaching changes in the way in which organizations are likely to operate going forward.
  • Consumer behavior and consumption patterns are also likely to change due to the global pandemic.
  • Social distancing and maintaining individual hygiene (like using masks and hand sanitizers) have become imperative.
  • Work-from-home (WFH) option has been exercised by most organizations for certain functions and there is a likelihood that it will continue for some more time till the viral infection comes under control.
  • There is a possibility that WFH may become the new-normal for certain categories of corporate work force even after COVID-19 comes under control.
  • Also, there is a higher focus on automation, digitalization as well as an increased dependence on analytical tools for decision making.

Overall, in the global pharma and biotech arena, one can now witness a varied response to opening-up – some quite bold, others are flexible and cautious – as the scenario unfolds. In this article, I shall dwell on the importance of framing a well-thought-out plan, with clearly stated Plan B, C and D in this area, to prevent any business opportunities to slip by due to delayed action.

Key questions to answer – what to open and when to open:

It goes without saying that remote working or WFH for all pharma employees can’t remain in-force for any indefinite period. It will mostly depend on two critical drivers, mainly to avoid any reckless decision with grave consequences. One – how fast several – reasonably strong preventive measures, such as, vaccinations, can provide a reasonable herd immunity to most people around. And also, how most other similar businesses successfully start carrying out their commercial operations in the same environment.

Pharma players would then need to have a clarity on the business functions where selective personal presence of the qualified staff is necessary, as no extent of technological interventions can compensate it. Then follows the question, when to start opening – without being reckless and following all prescribed Covid related health norms. The answer to these questions should be addressed along with Plan B, C and D ready – just in case something doesn’t work out or because of competitive reasons.

To elaborate this point, let me first give an example of what an Indian tech behemoth is planning to get back some employees in the workplace, based on a sophisticated digital model. Thereafter, we will have a glimpse on how several pharma and biotech players are planning in this space. The basic assumption is – the grand show must go on – with collective scientific learnings on how to coexist with the virus, for an indefinite period, if inevitable.

Integrated digital plan to get back more employees at the workplace by TCS: 

Lilly, Amgen, PfizerAs reported on June 02, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) are working on a plan to get back more employees to the workplace. The tech giant is focusing more ‘on increasing talent fungibility as global clients increasingly require associates with niche skills to be deployed on projects at short notices.

Thus, to evaluate how it will get a certain percentage of people back, TCS has drawn up a risk assessment model, Intelligent Urban Exchange (IUX). To effectively address the new requirements for employees’ safety, regulatory compliance, and operational efficiency, the company has devised this system. It will help TCS to get real-time insights that will help restore operations and ensure safety, while becoming nimbler and more resilient in the new normal.

What some global companies are planning now:

One will witness a mixed approach of global pharma players to get back employees at the workplace, soon. This will be evident from a few examples, as below.

A Bloomberg report on April 27, 2021, highlighted: ‘As vaccine drives ramp up and open the possibility of a return to the office, a growing number of companies have pointed to a continued role for remote work — and less of a need for pricey office space.’ It quoted Novartis CEO saying: ‘“We’ve all learned from the pandemic that we can work from home and work from the office, and it will always be a combination going forward.”

Thus, in Novartis, “hybrid-based working environment” – at-home and in-office work, will persist for the long term – extending beyond the pandemic. The Company CEO also reiterated: “We think this is the future.” The flexibility should allow Novartis to “access talent pools we would not have been able to access in the past,” he believes.

Similar approach, but with specific dates for returning to the workplace: 

By an open announcement on Linkedin, the Chairman and CEO of Eli Lilly declared the Company’s plan at the current stage of Covid pandemic. He said: “More than a year later, I’m pleased to say that we’re actively planning Lilly’s return to our workplace in downtown Indianapolis, and other facilities around the world.”

He further said, on June 1, 2021, Lilly will begin reopening their Indianapolis offices, inviting 25 percent of our workforce back – with masking and distancing indoors, and a requirement for vaccination. Barring a change in the steady downward case rate in the community, the Company will then open to all Indianapolis-based employees on July 12, 2021.

The company’s new work model will be based on the requirements for each job. Some employees will be on site all the time, others most of the time, and some will have even more flexibility. As ‘individual work’, and some ‘transactional work’, is easier done remotely, employees in those roles can choose that option in consultation with their supervisor. But collaboration, innovation and learning are best done in-person at the Company facilities, the Chairman and CEO said.

He reiterated, Lilly is not taking these steps casually, but based on a data-based approach, and will continue to do so. If external factors change, Lilly will adapt. In other countries, the Company offices will continue to follow local guidelines and open as they are allowed based on local circumstances, the Company clarified.

More remote working being planned by many other global majors:

According to another report of May 07, 2021, many other global pharma and biotech majors are now planning in favor of long-term remote working for several critical business than ever before. For example, on May 07, 2021 Amgen announced that the Company will make working from home a permanent policy for much of its international workforce, including locally.

It said, “Most of our employees who are currently working remotely will continue to do so for a majority of their time, even after the pandemic ends. Our intent is to create a more flexible environment that intentionally combines the benefits of remote and in-person working.” The statement further added. “We are not initiating any changes to our Thousand Oaks campus at the time. Though some staff may come to campus less frequently.”

As reported on April 27, 2021, Pfizer has put its large Philadelphia-area campus up for sale, as it considers the future of work. According to the company, as revealed by Fierce Pharma, “The decision to do so is primarily being driven by the company’s evolving – flexible working model, providing employees with greater flexibility to work remotely while still maintaining the ability to connect and collaborate regularly on-site.”

Conclusion:

It’s over a year of business disruptions within the pharmaceutical industry, at varying intensity and in different phases, though. For example, after more than a year since the pandemic hit India, Covid 2.0 has, reportedly, pushed up Indian pharmaceutical sales to a new high. It recorded an exponential growth of 59% year on year in April 2021, against 16 per cent – year on year in March 2021. This is obviously an outlier and is apparently unsustainable. Thus, for a sustainable good growth with greater certainty, Indian pharma players would require working out a well-researched digital blueprint of the future working framework of business operations with ‘what if’ options.

As has been revealed, remote working, wherever it makes robust business sense, will help getting hard-to-reach talent pools regardless of geography. This opportunity needs to be leveraged. However, it’s also a fact that for various reasons, everyone may not be too comfortable to work from home. Thus, the future work plan may call for a balanced and employee specific approaches.

Which is why, the process will require in-depth analysis of key functions where the personal presence of qualified staff is necessary, mainly because, no extent of technological interventions can compensate the human presence. Then follows the question – when to start opening in a responsible way – following all prescribed Covid related health norms. A representative pilot trial may help in this area.

Some of the key factors to consider will include speed of getting the staff vaccinated. Besides, arrangement for quick identification of breakthrough Covid infections among staff through quick tracing, testing, and provisions for appropriate hospitalization, if necessary, need to be put in place. Thus, I reckon, it’s time for the domestic pharma companies to diligently plan for unleashing the new potential of the respective organizations – amid the pandemic-triggered changes in market dynamics.

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.

 

 

Augment Pharma Customers’ New Value Expectations With Content Marketing

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‘COVID-19 is driving lasting changes in what HCPs need and value,’ found the Accenture Healthcare Provider Survey May 2020, named – ‘Reinventing Relevance.’ Several physicians from the US, Europe and Asia were found to have experienced a significant change taking place in many pharma companies’ communication with them – going much beyond just product information.

The study observed, right from the early days of Covid-19 pandemic, daily operations of many health care providers (HCPs) shifted to more virtual interactions with both patients and pharma companies. The participating doctors also felt, the services that pharma companies are now offering deliver higher value than the pre-pandemic period.

Accenture’s follow-up study in August 2020 reiterated, ‘pharma companies have improved how they engage with healthcare providers during Covid-19.’ It, therefore, appears that the new value expectations of many physicians are being met with a newer value delivery model, significantly deviating from pre-Covid practices.

For example, in the above August 2020 survey, most HCPs said pharma players are increasingly providing education on how to better treat patients remotely and help them manage their conditions in light of COVID-19. Besides, some of these companies are also helping patients understand various contemporary health and care related issues.

Against this backdrop, as the study underscored: ‘Now is the time for pharma companies to redefine their relevance.’ Picking up from here – in this article, I shall focus on the relevance of ‘Content Marketing’ in pharma to effectively deliver the new value expectations of physicians with a new value delivery model.

Pharma marketing can’t be ‘an outdated and uncoordinated analogue’ any longer:

Since quite some time, technological innovation has started opening new vistas of opportunities with new tools, multi-channels, and platforms for personalized and more effective customer engagement in pharma. But, majority of tradition-bound pharma players, unlike their counterparts in other industries, preferred to stick to the single channel marketing model, that has been offering golden eggs, till Covid-19 struck.

It’s not that no one in pharma knew at that time about the usefulness of content marketing. This is vindicated even in the article on the future of pharma marketing, published in the Pharmaphorum, on May 23, 2017. It wrote: ‘Where others have taken marketing innovation in their stride, pharma retains an outdated and uncoordinated analogue perspective of how to communicate its business.’

Citing examples of some pharma marketers, such as, Boehringer Ingelheim and Eli Lilly, it wrote, ‘while moves have been made to embrace new marketing methods, such as the integration of digital technologies for multichannel marketing (MCM) strategies, the way forward for pharma marketing is far from clear.’  It was – then.

It is different now; 

Covid-19 pandemic has encouraged many pharma marketers to expand marketing focus much beyond just product information to meet their customers new value expectations. These encompass some critical areas, as the May and August 2020 surveys of Accenture have brought out.

For many companies, content marketing strategy with an omnichannel presence will help build long-term relationships with customers. That said, for all to be on the same page, let me recap – what exactly is content marketing, and its difference from the traditional single channel marketing in the pharma industry.

Content marketing in pharma:

According to the Content Marketing Institute: ‘Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience – and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.’

Instead of pitching the products or services, content marketing provides contemporary, relevant, and useful content to customers to help them solve their contemporary issues in the given space. Since quite some time, content marketing is being practiced in many industries, including -by a selected few in pharma, as indicated above.

The key difference from traditional marketing:

The value of content marketing lies in the quality of personalized engagement between the customer and the company with personalized content through different channels. From this perspective, while traditional marketing is akin to ‘shouts’ at the customers – generally, for a brand prescription, whereas content marketing is akin to ‘talking’ with them for a solution. Content marketing in pharma is, therefore, about a grand strategy for effective participation in meaningful conversations for development stronger stakeholder relationships.

Content marketing usually includes educational articles – on the company website or in the form of e-books, videos, infographics, white papers, magazines, podcasts, or webinars. The content for all these need to be tailor made to credibly answer specific questions that customers have and provide them with something they can’t get elsewhere. This process of creating a deeper and a sustainable bond with stakeholders, often pays a rich commercial dividend, even in trying times.

Increasing use of content marketing, especially, in a fast-changing scenario, as we witness today, can help a pharma company to change and enhance its customer’s behavior toward the company, in a win-win manner.

Some recent examples of content marketing in pharma:

For more clarity, let me give below a few examples of good content marketing in the pharma industry, as available in the cyberspace – some of them capturing Covid related issues too:

  • Speak Your Migraine, developed by Novartis, was created to support people living with migraine. The website carries an impact assessment tool for the visitors to feel how migraine affects people’s lives, enabling them to openly share their experiences with doctors and family.
  • Lilly Pad is Eli Lilly’s official blog, consisting of articles on the company, its research to cure diseases and improve the quality of lives. The blog also provides details of the health and public policy, along with corporate social responsibility of the organization in various areas of the society.
  • Takeda Pharmaceutical launched its campaign IBD Unmasked to support and create increased awareness of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). The campaign aims to help IBD sufferers find their inner super-strength and become superheroes like the characters featured in the graphic novels within the campaign.
  • Bayer’s content marketing initiatives span across print and digital media with a large following. The organization publishes two well-appreciated publications as a carrier of its content: The Bayer Scientific Magazine and the Bayer Magazine.

Conclusion:

Overall, pharma and biotech industries don’t seem to be doing as well in this area. According to ‘The State of Content Survey for Life Sciences’ by Accenture, only very few of them think that they are doing well. For example:

  • Just 13% of pharma and biotech marketers and 17% of med tech marketers think they leverage content well.
  • Only 4% in med tech and 11% in pharma/biotech report they have a clearly documented content strategy that meets their current and future needs (compared to 42% across all industries).
  • Only 6% of med tech marketers and 9% of pharma/biotech marketers feel objectives are clearly laid out (versus 19% across all industries).

It is quite possible that more than a year since Covid disruptions, this situation has somewhat improved for some companies. Nevertheless, amid this complex environment, most of the pharma and biotech players still require defining a robust ‘content marketing strategy’ for them. Establishing clear objectives of the content strategy based on well-researched data, along with its measurement criteria, will demand a quality thought process. Depending on the strategic requirements, the leadership will need to put in place an organizational structure for content marketing, including people, processes, technology, and tools that can deliver the stated content marketing goals – both during, as well as after the pandemic period.

Thus, I reckon, to effectively augment pharma customers’ new value expectations, content marketing needs to occupy an important place in today’s pharma marketing playbook.

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.

 

Rebalance KOL-Mix As Covid-19 Redefines Pharma Marketing

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‘It’s safe to say that 2020 was a year like no other and that 2021 will certainly not revert back to the old normal,’ reiterated the Harvard Business Review Article - ‘10 Truths About Marketing After the Pandemic,’ of March 10, 2021. Amid Covid 2.0, several astute pharma marketers, I reckon, have also realized the same by now. The recent Government announcement on the impending third wave of Covid-19, coupled with slow vaccination pace in the country, further strengthens this possibility.

That said, making all internalize that pharma marketing, and specifically the brand building process will no longer remain – as it traditionally was, may still be a tough task. Mere digitalization of the traditional marketing processes won’t be a magic wand, either, to excel in the rapidly transforming market situation. The task ahead is fundamentally cerebral – ahead of any Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools and applications.

With the market dynamics going through a metamorphosis, pharma marketing needs to be redefined. Capturing the nuances of this redefinition is essential also to ensure the right focus on the right Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) – for successful branding with long-term image building. Today’s article will focus on this less charted area during the pandemic. Let me begin with a few examples of the redefined areas of marketing triggered by disruptive changes in the current pharma business environment.

Traditional pharma marketing axioms need to be redefined:

To give a flavor of this redefinition, I shall pick up the following two examples from the above Harvard Business Review Article and then zero-in on just one, to explore the recasting and rebalancing need of the KOLs, for business excellence in the new normal:

A.  Technology and human enablement:

Pre-pandemic belief: The right tech stack to drive modern marketing success.

Post-pandemic need: The right balance of factors (including tech stack) to drive modern marketing success.

In pre-pandemic days, focus on “tech stack” was emerging as an end-all game changer for marketing. But in the pandemic days there emerges a need to take a step back. The right approach to human enablement is becoming the key to properly understand the changes and their implications in the pharma business environment. Human enablement includes, making sure that people have the right skills to select and employ the most appropriate environment specific technology tools, effectively. The system should also ensure that the right measurement approaches are in place to motivate innovation and rewarding success.

B.  Relationship building to drive marketing success

Pre-pandemic belief: Relationships matter to drive marketing success

Post-pandemic need: Relationship building is everything to drive modern marketing success

Building relationship with customers rests on the bedrock of trust. Covid-19 has placed a new emphasis on relationships, faced with a near virtual sales environment. New findings indicate, the teams with existing relationships have been able to maintain revenue momentum, capitalizing on the strength of their prior bonds. In contrast, prospecting for new customers has required an evolved set of skills focused on selling solutions, not products, as the Harvard Business Review Article emphasized.

Trust, credibility, and integrity are fundamental to driving market momentum. These are foundational to the value exchange between a company and a consumer. As the Harvard paper writes, this has necessitated ‘a serious recasting of talent to identify people best suited to driving relationships in this new world of online interactions — a world that relies less on charm (and even an expense account) and more on insights and solutions. Trust will be built by and rewarded to those that listen to customer needs and then craft solutions to meet those needs.’

Thus, I believe, in the redefined pharma market, the marketers need to have a fresh look with fresh a pair of eyes to expand and select their KOLs to achieve their business goals – consistently, in the years ahead.

Pandemic impacted pharma’s KOL outreach:

Pharma marketers are well-aware how much they rely on their KOLs in several areas of a brand building strategy, including the creation of widely acknowledged brand reputation, winning key stakeholder trust on brands.  Thus, a robust strategy for engaging with stakeholders – based on KOL inputs, continue to remain an area of paramount importance for drug companies.

From this perspective, as I wrote before, during the early days of national lockdown triggered by Covid-19 pandemic, many marketers felt that in-person KOL outreach activities in physical events have only got disrupted temporarily. As the disruption prolonged, some companies hurriedly shifted online. Others hopefully kept waiting for some more time, and then tried to figure out how to catch up quickly by switching over to a more effective, interactive – and situation-specific contemporary communication channels and platforms, for them.

Marketers require recasting their KOL outreach strategy:

No doubt, KOL engagement remains a high priority area for pharma marketers - for guidance with fresh inputs while charting a new marketing pathway, mainly based on their:

  • Therapy area expertise where the company represents, and the sphere of influence
  • The span of influence to further business progress, gaining stakeholder trust and building brand reputation.

As the market environment and stakeholder expectations have altered significantly, in several marketing related areas, pharma marketers require quickly recasting their KOL outreach strategy, including virtual communication models and platforms. Many may consider, for valid reasons, though, that virtual events may not be as effective as effective as F2F physical events.

Notably, some well-researched digital outreach strategy for the KOLs – tailor-made according to their new expectations in the changing market dynamics, are trying to fetch the best out of them. The new initiative is also improving the effectiveness of virtual interactions manifold, steadily – with the ongoing honing of the processes. However, this would involve fresh mapping, and identification of a contemporary set of KOLs, soon, with in-depth understanding of their needs and interests.

Pharma KOL-mix need to include ‘influencers’ also:

Just to recap, KOLs are experts in their respective fields. Each one of them is also a well-regarded and influential voice, whose expert advice is respected and followed by many others – related to that field. These may include authorities in the same industry, whose opinion or decisions may have significant influence or impact on the business. In that sense, KOLs play the role of influencers, too.

Traditionally, in the drug industry KOLs are selected from accomplished and well-decorated medical experts who are often early adopters of new brands, playing a significant role in the prescription decision of other doctors.

Leveraging two other key roles of KOLs in the changing environment: 

The other two roles that need to be leveraged by pharma companies in the in the changing environment may include:

  • Making more people aware of the critical roles of pharma brands, e.g., what people have witnessed recently with Covid-19 drugs and vaccines.
  • Improving brand credibility and corporate reputation by gaining stakeholder trust. This is usually triggered a favorable word-of-mouth awareness of the role that the company is playing to save and improve the quality of human lives – and, in that process, the livelihoods.

This gets reflected in the most recent annual Axious Harris 100 survey, where two widely publicized Covid-19 vaccine makers – ‘Moderna and Pfizer leaped into the top 10 best-regarded companies in the U.S,’ among all other industries. This clearly highlights ‘Americans love their vaccine makers’. As reported, Moderna ranked third, while Pfizer featured at No. 7 on the strength of its product and innovation scores, nabbing high marks for vision and culture along the way.

‘They’re the first biopharma companies to crack the top 10 in the ranking’s 20-year history.’ Interestingly, Johnson & Johnson, which featured in the top 10 before; this year, it ranks 72 on the list with a reputation score roughly the same as 2020’s,’ the report adds.

KOL outreach needs to be more focused and well-targeted on even niches: 

This is an important need and has been vindicated by Deloitte focus group studies in the U.S., India, South Africa and the U.K and published on May 06, 2021. The studies found that the pandemic did improve overall pharma reputation score with a ‘reason to hope for more.’

However, still many respondents used phrases like, “profit-making” and “harmful”, as reasons of why they don’t trust pharma. Curiously, in the U.S., 29% of people cited “questionable moral integrity of biopharma executives” as a problem. Only about one-fourth (26%) of participants agreed that their trust in drug makers increased during the pandemic, even when Deloitte mentioned vaccine development.

Conclusion:

To mitigate such reputation, trust, and credibility related issues, besides transparency in drug pricing, besides efficacy and safety related research-data, pharma needs to work closely with a wider span of KOLs, who may help in explaining complex science in simpler words.

As the above Deloitte studies bring to the fore, the pandemic could be yet another fresh starting point for pharma to gain long-term trust of customers, and other stakeholders. In that endeavor, a fresh set of KOLs need to be identified through well-structured mapping. This initiative should ideally include, besides top medical and regulatory experts of high repute, globally acknowledged academics, top domain experts, and key members of the government.

Thus, in my view, as the pandemic redefines pharma marketing, there is an important need of rebalancing the KOL-mix of each company, based on their specific needs, especially in the virtual space, as the situation will unfold.

By: Tapan J. Ray     

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

 

To Allay Customers’ New Apprehensions Pharma Needs A New Conversation

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Since the beginning of 2020, witnessing the rapid spread of Covid pandemic with very high global fatality rate – virtually the entire global populations – directly or indirectly, have been looking up to the health care industry for help. This, of course, includes the drug industry – with high expectations of people on deliverables, blended with palpable apprehensions on what’s happening around.

Amid the wave after wave attack of Covid-19, many have realized that there will neither be any quick-fix or immediate solution to tame the virus. As India goes through the Covid 2.0 catastrophe, while waiting for Covid 3.0, a similar situation prevails in the country – with a sense of lurking fear for future uncertainties, slowly but steadily creeping in.

Thus, an unprecedented public expectation for speedy disentanglement of Covid-19 disruptions, confer a huge responsibility to all health care providers and entities, such as, the drug industry, which will be my key focus in this article. Just as any extraordinary situation calls for extraordinary initiatives, this national tragedy also demands from pharma professionals to start a new and proactive conversation, driven by ‘out of-box’ thinking.

I shall explore in this article, in which areas pharma needs to roll out a new conversation to meet with new expectations of its stakeholders, formed during the Covid Pandemic. This engagement needs to go beyond drugs and vaccines, spanning across key contemporary developments that are bothering pharma customers. The aim should be to help customers visualize a brighter horizon based on scientific reasons, in not-too-distant future, such as:

  • How several pharma companies are taking novel initiatives, as a part of their corporate objectives to save lives and livelihoods, faster.
  • How pharma players are thinking ‘out of the box’ to allay Covid related public apprehensions and neutralizing gross misinformation on Covid cure – based on scientific reasons, often selectively deploying their staff members.

In this regard, let me start with a recent advice of a top pharma veteran of global repute, especially on political and public expectations of ‘the endpoint’ for successful prevention and effective treatment of Covid-19 infections.

When focus is on ‘the end point – the price point’, it needs pharma’s attention:

Former CEO of Novartis Joe Jimenez – Ex-Novartis CEO and CEO & Cofounder of Aditum Bio, advised the same in an interview with Reuters Events, published on April 06, 2021. Although this was against the backdrop of the United States, the same is applicable to India, as well.

There, Jimenez said: “And I think the political focus in the United States is too often on the end point, the price point, which definitely needs attention, but not enough on the whole pipeline. And that absolutely needs attention and can bring down the price point at the end of the day.”

“It’s the pharmaceutical industry’s responsibility to show how their drug can lower total costs through the system, whether it’s reducing hospitalization or whether it is reducing other health care costs and comorbidities that lead to ever increasing budgets. If the industry focuses on that, I think I think that’s going to result in better launch success in the next few years,” he added.

However, there is another endpoint – of equal importance, especially in the Covid-19 prevention and the treatment process.

The other end point is equally important, as there may be an extended need for Covid vaccines: 

Wider access to Covid drugs and vaccines is another political and general public’s ‘end point’ of expectations, besides price. As I wrote in my previous article, on October 02, 2021, India and South Africa had proposed at the WTO about an IP waiver for Covid-19 drugs and vaccines to resolve the issues of access and affordability for these products.

Thereafter, on May 05, 2021, the United States also issued a statement supporting the IP waiver for Covid-19 vaccines at the WTO, in its ‘service of ending this pandemic.’ As reported on May 13, 2021, even China now backs the drugs and vaccine IP waiver at the WTO.

Patent waiver for Covid drugs and vaccines make sense for the coming years, especially, in view of the reports that ‘Pfizer, Regeneron CEOs see extended need for COVID-19 vaccines, treatments as pandemic enters the next phase.’ Adding that the data stressed a “need” for re-vaccinations, the Pfizer CEO said, while protection remains high for those six months, it does “go down by time.” Thus, the need for Covid vaccine may continue to remain as important as of date, to prevent the pandemic over, at least, a couple of years, if not beyond.

That apart, some interesting developments followed soon – coincidentally or otherwise.

Meanwhile, some pharma companies responded with laudable initiatives: 

Presumably, for wider availability and affordability of Covid drugs and vaccines, several pharma players alone or in association with governments, took some laudable initiatives. A few examples are, as follows:

  • On May 10, 2021, BioNTech, which has partnered with Pfizer to produce its COVID-19 vaccine, said it plans to set up a new manufacturing site in Singapore, with a capacity to produce several hundred million doses of mRNA-based vaccine.
  • As reported on the same day, as above, Eli Lilly promised to supply India with thousands of tablets of baricitinib for hospitalized COVID-19 patients. It also pledged to sign a royalty-free, non-exclusive voluntary licensing agreements with Cipla, Lupin and Sun Pharma—to expand baricitinib’s availability in the country. Notably, in this month itself, the DCGI has authorized baricitinib plus remdesivir combo for emergency use of ‘hospitalized patients requiring supplemental oxygen, invasive mechanical ventilation, or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO).’ Baricitinib has also faced a shortage of during the Covid 2.0 surge.
  • As per reports of May 12, 2021: ‘The US is looking at joint production of Johnson and Johnson’s Covid vaccine in India and ways to help manufacturers like Serum Institute of India (SII) to boost production,’

Pharma’s new role to allay public apprehensions in many Covid related areas:

In this complex scenario, various public apprehensions on Covid vaccines and drugs, need to be explained with scientific evidence – in a common man’s language. These include frequent changes in the dosage interval between two doses of some vaccines, whereas for other vaccines there isn’t any change in this area. Or why in India even within a group of fully vaccinated individuals, wearing masks or maintaining social distancing norms are necessary, when these requirements have been relaxed for fully vaccinated people in the United States. Or, when reports like: ‘Covid Cases Double In World’s Most-Vaccinated Nation, Raising Concerns,’ add fuel to the fire of public apprehensions in this regard.

Drug companies, especially those who are engaged in the global battle against Covid-19 – in their research lab, product development process, including clinical trials, can play an additional stellar role in this area, too. With ‘out of the box ideas’ for Covid related public engagement, they can scientifically respond to all public apprehensions with scientific reasons, in a simple language, on what is happening around most people, nowadays. Selective deployment of their own staff members can also make the initiative more meaningful.

This conversation may also include, science-based response to some bizarre claims of ‘Covid cure’ – from religious leaders having significant followers, and even by Union Ministers, without hurting their feelings or sentiments. These ‘advices’ were widely circulated by the mainstream global and local media, including the Wall Street Journal.

For example, one such report said: The president of a century-old religious organization declared that “consuming cow urine and cow dung will stop the effect of infectious coronavirus.” The swami added that a “person who chants ‘om namah shivay’ and applies cow dung” on his body “will be saved.” However, it was also reported that ‘Indian doctors warn against cow dung as Covid cure.’ Similar advice in different forms, even by elected politicians, keeps misguiding many unsuspected members of the public.

Conclusion:

A series of Covid related contemporary needs and apprehensions, besides the traditional ones are surfacing. These are to be mitigated, on an ongoing basis. Pharma players – individually and collectively, instead of being always reactive, may wish to volunteer to proactively address these issues to help people move in the right direction.

As Covid appears to be a medium to long-haul battle – unlike most other pandemics, pharma companies need to think ‘out of the box’ to create innovative – new – and proactive conversation models in this space. In turn, the initiatives will help them win long-term trust and loyalty of customers – that will always remain as invaluable assets, fueling sustainable growth in business.

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.