PharmAware Blog

The current role of the sales and marketing function for pharma companies will become obsolete over the next decade as the industry shifts from mass marketing to target marketing, according to a new report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

The report, Pharma 2020: Marketing the Future, states that current giant pharmaceutical sales forces will be replaced by a smaller, smarter and more effective sales force model, requiring pharma companies to recruit and train people with new skills who can negotiate with increasingly powerful healthcare payers and pharmacoeconomic assessment agencies.

In addition, the report states that pharmaceutical companies will adopt new talent management strategies, as well as ensure that performance measures and incentive systems are aligned with the behavior that will be needed to operate effectively in a more integrated environment.

Joe Palo, an advisor to PwC Pharmaceutical and Life Sciences Advisory Practice, told MM&M that as the industry moves toward specialty products and away from primary care, fewer sales force personnel will be needed. “It’s not going to go to zero, you are going to have blockbuster products and sales forces going into primary care, but there will be less.”

In addition, pharma companies will likely recruit sales force personnel who have more of a clinical background such as pharmacists and nurses.

PwC’s Palo said that while the industry has always welcomed people who had clinical skills such PharmDs and RNs, that percentage will rise primarily because of the nature of the specialty products which are going to require a deeper understanding of pathology and alternative therapies. “It will be very helpful and candidates will distinguish themselves by being able to have a healthcare perspective. Having a nursing or PharmD degree would be good, but having been a practicing PharmD or a practicing nurse for a few years in a healthcare system would be even better,” said Palo.

The report claims that the current sales and marketing model is becoming increasingly ineffective, and although US sales calls to physicians still accounts for more than half the market share new brands win during their first year of life, one in five doctors now refuses to see any sales representatives and returns on sales visits to doctors have declined.

According to the report, many of the industry’s biggest markets are saturated with sales representatives and the number of pharmaceutical sales professionals has been growing three times faster than the number of physicians.

Between 1996 and 2005, the number of US sales representatives nearly doubled to 100,000 while the number of practicing physicians rose by just 26%. Between 2004 and 2005, there was a 23% drop in dollar growth per sales call in the US. Pharmaceutical manufacturers have responded with various cost-cutting measures so that by the end of 2008, Big Pharma had announced plans to shed over 60,000 jobs globally, many of them in sales and marketing, the report concluded.

According to the report, many pharmaceutical companies are shifting their product mix and investing in genomics, proteomics and metabolomics for specialized therapies. As their focus switches to specialist medicines, the pharmaceutical markets and sales function will be organized around brands, not products. The potential for creating brands that physicians and patients value is much greater with packages comprising different product-service combos than it is with isolated products, the report concludes.

Medical Marketing and Media, 25/2/9
http://www.mmm-online.com/Pharma-sales-forces-will-shrink-clinical-skills-in-demand/article/127857/

Dr. Steven Woloshin and Dr. Lisa Schwartz of Dartmouth University say that the answer for many people is “far too little.” And they hope that a new study, which they plan to present to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration today, will result in the addition of an easily comprehensible box of information on the benefits and risks of a drug to its direct-to-consumer advertisements.

In a report slated for publication in the Annals of Internal Medicine April 21, Woloshin and Schwartz study the effects of a “drug facts box” on consumer understanding of the medicine. The informational box outlines in plain terms the risks and benefits of a particular drug. It was printed on consumer-targeted advertisements for the drugs and displayed numerical tables that showed the benefits and risks of the advertised drug.

The researchers found that the consumers who received this additional information, on average, had a better understanding of the drug in question than those who did not. “We think it is very important that consumers get credible, accessible information about how well drugs work and about their side effects,” Woloshin says. “Otherwise, they really don’t have the ability to participate meaningfully in important decisions such as, ‘Do the potential benefits of this medication outweigh possible harms?’

ABC News, 27/2/9.

CHILDREN under 12 should not be given over-the-counter cough and cold medicines because they are ineffective and can be harmful, Britain’s medicines regulator will warn.

A simple homemade preparation of honey and lemon is likely to be just as effective as popular remedies such as Lemsip, Day Nurse and Sudafed, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) will say this week.

A review concluded that there was “no robust evidence that these medicines work” in children; it found that they could cause side effects including sleep disturbance, allergic reactions and hallucinations.

The Times 1/3/9.