Healthy Skepticism Library item: 137

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: news

Byron E.
The Web @ Work / Astra Zeneca: A Weekly Case Study
The Wall Street Journal 2001 Nov 5

Full text:

Cold Calls: Despite all of the technological advances that pharmaceutical companies have made to create drugs, the marketing of their products remains curiously stagnant. In the U.S., approximately 78,000 pharmaceutical sales representatives still go door-to-door the old-fashioned way, hoping to get even 30 seconds of face time to convince doctors to prescribe their company’s brands. But since time with a sales representative means time away from patients, just more than half of such visits actually results in a meeting with a doctor, according to Health Strategies Group, a health-care consultancy. Recognizing the disparity, pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca PLC sought a more potent way to deliver product information to physicians: Entice doctors to initiate the call instead.

You Call Us: AstraZeneca, based in London, recently expanded its U.S. marketing efforts to include an Internet-based audio and video-detailing system by iPhysicianNet of Scottsdale, Ariz. IPhysicianNet has installed computers with high-speed Internet access and video-conferencing capabilities in the offices of 7,500 physicians in the U.S. who were selected because they are among those who write the most prescriptions. In exchange for free use of the computer and Internet for other purposes, the doctors agree to use the system to participate in at least one video call a month with each of the eight participating pharmaceutical companies that pay iPhysicianNet for the service, including AstraZeneca.

On weekdays from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. EST, eight AstraZeneca representatives handle these calls, covering educational, dosage and clinical-trial information with doctors. They speak with the 5,000 network physicians who are identified as practicing in areas of medicine that most closely match AstraZeneca’s brands, including drugs for respiratory and cardiovascular problems. Since the call takes place at the doctor’s convenience, it lasts an average of nine minutes, as much as four times longer than a typical in-person sales visit. Additionally, because of the video format, the presentation can involve visual elements that normally aren’t part of a hurried office visit.

A New Pitch: “The Internet has raised the expectation level of our customers, physicians. We’re trying to be innovative to meet their needs,” explains Richard Williams, vice president of AstraZeneca’s U.S. eBusiness unit. Rather than a replacement, he sees the system as an enhancement to the company’s 6,000 U.S. salespeople. Mr. Williams acknowledges that when the company first adopted the system in March, the sales force was concerned that doctors wouldn’t accept visits from them anymore. On the contrary, after physicians were introduced to a drug via a video call, sales representatives found that some doctors requested in-person visits to ask follow-up questions. It has also helped with the infamous “no-see” doctors, some physicians who refuse any meeting with a salesperson.

Death of a Salesman? “In the long term, you’re going to see pharmaceutical companies replacing representatives with technology,” predicts Rayna Herman of Health Strategies Group, Palo Alto, Calif. She believes they are already reaching the saturation point of “feet on the street,” forcing companies to look for ways to be more effective with the salespeople they already have. Indeed, cost is a factor, too. Last year, drug companies spent $5 billion on sales visits to doctors’ offices, averaging about $160 per individual product discussion, or “detail;” iPhysicianNet says its system costs between $100 to $150 a call. AstraZeneca recently signed a three-year contract with iPhysicianNet for an undisclosed amount.

Time Remedy: James R. Bates, of Port Orchard, Wash., a doctor on iPhysicianNet’s network, usually spends about 30 seconds with each of five to 10 salespeople who visit him every day. But when he makes his monthly video-conferencing calls, he spends about five minutes with each company. Making the call on his time, he says, is the difference. “That time is all mine. I don’t have to worry about the six other patients in my waiting room.”