Healthy Skepticism Library item: 20470

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Electronic Source

Burns M
Manhattan Research: Pharma widens target to new decision makers
Med Ad News 2013 Feb 11
http://blog.medadnews.com/index.php/2013/02/11/pharma-widens-target-to-new-decision-makers/

Full text:

Pharmaceutical companies are shifting their sales and marketing strategies to expand customer focus on more than just doctors and patients, and these revamped plans now include payers, nurses, and pharmacists. The influence that these players have on prescribed medications is growing, and is likely to intensify as strategies to improve outcomes and slash costs are implemented through accountable care organizations, formularies, and other changing dynamics within the healthcare marketplace. Manhattan Research has conducted recent studies that show an opportunity for pharmas to leverage digital media and online channels to reach and provide services to emerging customers. These new customers are digitally savvy, and are already working with pharmas.

More than four in five hospital-based formulary decision makers are interested in any form of continuous support and resources from pharma, including help with such items as developing provider education materials, economic models, and patient education materials. “The pharma industry is also acknowledging this increased role of the pharmacist by focusing on different initiatives like adherence and other therapy type management programs,” principal analyst Shawn Dimantha, Manhattan Research, told Med Ad News. “Non-adherence costs them hundreds of billions dollars every year. If they can get patients to be much more adherent it saves them that much more money.”

Some other trends to note are that more than three in four retail, hospital, and specialty pharmacists have used or are interested in using online promotional activities from pharma. These online promotional programs include webinars, self-guided virtual details, and live sessions with reps. From a consumer marketing standpoint, Dimantha says, “Pharma is going to have to be very targeted with their DTC campaigns, not just because they’re running out of their blockbuster products and having to focus more on specialty markets, but also because they’re going to have to align and make sure that some of their audiences that are eligible for their products.”

“Pharma is reconsidering who their customer is – and not a day too soon,” said Monique Levy , VP of research at Manhattan Research. “The good news is that nurses, formulary decision makers, and pharmacists are highly accessible online and recognize that pharma can add value and help them succeed in this new outcome-based world.”

Three in five registered nurses have expressed interest in accessing information on patient assistance programs, and links to disease sites for professionals on pharma and device manufacturer websites. “To a certain degree, having this information where you want it and when you want it, helps improve decision making ability of healthcare professionals,” Dimantha told Med Ad News. “It creates somewhat of an information overload. This overload can sometimes be helped by companies like pharma by creating more targeted sites and useful information on these platforms.