PHARMA NEWS, MULTICHANNEL & CROSSCHANNEL MAKETING

Up to 90% of side effects to drugs are not reported, according to some estimates. “Adverse drug reactions (ADRs) are grossly under reported by everyone, including healthcare professionals, but particularly so by patients,” says David Lewis, head of global safety at Novartis, who is co-ordinating the involvement of pharmaceutical companies in a €2.3m three-year public-private project called Web-RADR (Recognising Adverse Drug Reactions).

Adds health coach function to Cornerstones4Care

Not all available market research is created equal," says Rich Meyer, author of DTC Marketing Blog. According to Meyer, "some research is a must have and provides insights, but there is also a lot of available research that doesn’t clarify findings and is written by journalists not people will real world pharma business experience." He goes on to rate various sources of pharma marketing research (here).

Meyer has two ratings:"A-Must Have" and "D-Pass," which means don't bother with it. Meyer doesn't have a "C-Meh!" rating -- that's my way of saying "lackluster, take it or leave it."

One study "written by journalists" is the MM&M/Ogilvy CommonHealth Healthcare Marketers Trend Report, the 2014 version of which was just published (here). Let me tell you why I give it a "C-Meh!" rating.

One surprising finding of this survey of 202 "qualified" senior executives -- "all director level and above" -- employed by pharmaceutical, biotechnology, devices and diagnostics companies, is that 22% of pharma marketing budgets of these individuals goes to some form of digital marketing (websites, digital ads, SEO marketing, and social media).

See further read on blog!

How #healthcare professionals prefer to communicate #hcsm #hcmktg #infographic

Doctors in China are making strong use of smartphones for professional purposes, according to a new report.

The Manhattan Research Study from Decision Resources Group found that 80 per cent of physicians in the country now own or use one of the devices.

The analysts said in the topline figures they released that smartphone use covers a variety of activities and that consequently pharma marketers must tailor their approach when developing smartphone content aimed at doctors in China.

The figures put the country on a par with the US, where doctors' use of smartphones – through growing rapidly over the last few years – seems to have plateaued.

Meanwhile, the detail that Decision Resources shared from its Taking the Pulse Global 2014 report also showed that doctors in Brazil don't think pharma is making the best use of tablet detailing.

Three quarters of the doctors in Brazil surveyed said they had seen a tablet-wielding rep in 2014 but Decision Resources said satisfaction rates with the technology remains relatively low.

“Content and user-experience need to improve in order to enhance tablet-rep campaigns and increase physician satisfaction,” the analysts concluded.

Meredith Ressi, VP of marketing innovation solutions at Decision Resources, said: “Many companies now centralise digital best practices through global centers of excellence, while also giving local affiliates the flexibility to tweak their approach and asset mix to suit local market demand.

“These findings highlight the necessity of this tailored approach and can help multinational companies inform these priorities by market.”

Boehringer Ingelheim has announced that it intends to make drug data from clinical trials stemming back to 1998 accessible as part of efforts to improve research transparency within the industry.

The move is part of a collaboration with fellow pharma companies Sanofi, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, Roche and ViiV Healthcare on an online platform to handle requests from researchers for trial data.

Boehringer's chairman Dr Andreas Barner made the announcement at Boehringer's annual company meeting yesterday, following up from a commitment to transparency announced at the same meeting in 2013.

Dr Barner, who also heads R&D at Boehringer, explained that the online platform - available at clinicalstudydatarequest.com - currently contained 50 trials available for which to request patient-level data, but the plan is to reach 500 from all involved parties.

“That's quite a job to achieve. but we have to do it in interest of what data and information can be shared with others,” said Dr Barner.

“We have always argued in favour of transparency and now want a more scientific discussion on the level of trial data and have therefore joined up with several research-based pharmaceutical companies in order to make clinical trials data and documents available to a wider public.” ....

read on in the original post here

Abstract

This study analyses how 14 OECD Countries refer to “value” when making decisions on reimbursement and prices of new medicines. It details the type of outcomes considered, the perspective and methods adopted for economic evaluation when used; and the consideration of budget impact. It describes which dimensions are taken into account in the assessment of “innovativeness” and the consequences of this assessment on prices; it confirms that treatments for severe and/or rare diseases are often more valued than others and shows how countries use product-specific agreements in an attempt to better align value and price.

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Conclusions

The main objective of this report was to explore value-based pricing for pharmaceuticals. In principle, value-based pricing (VBP) can offer better value-for-money for purchasers of pharmaceuticals. It also gives clear signals to pharmaceutical companies that they will be rewarded if their products address the priorities of the purchasers, so in the longer run may reorient pharmaceutical innovation in a more cost- effective direction. However, it is easier to talk of rewarding ‘value’ than it is actually to do so. Is it value to the purchaser that should be the basis of decisions (i.e. some combination of the increase in health and the reduction in other health spending) or the value to society (which would also take into account increased labour force productivity of those who are less sick and those who no longer care for others, amongst other things)? Is there ‘value’ in innovation itself? Countries which use value-based pricing for pharmaceuticals do not make the same choices as to how to determine value. Furthermore, countries which do not have value-based pricing per se may take into account some of the elements used in economic assessments of value in making their decisions. This report attempts to shed light on what impact these different choices make to reimbursement decisions and prices.

...

Read on in the downloadable PDF!

Please cite this paper as:

Paris, V. and A. Belloni (2013), “Value in Pharmaceutical Pricing”,

OECD Health Working Papers, No. 63, OECD Publishing.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/5k43jc9v6knx-en

Patients who take medications as doctors direct may save as much as $7,800 each year.

An Eyeforpharma report has some great information on adherence.  There are many reasons given by patients for not adhering to their prescribed treatment. The most obvious are that they simply forgot to take their medicine. This generally corresponds to only about 30% to 40% of cases. In other words, up to 70% of non-adherence is voluntary; people decide not to follow their therapy, either discontinuing it altogether (i.e. not being persistent) or not taking it as often as they should (non-compliant). Why?

Different studies supply different answers to that question, but they can generally be grouped into the following categories:

• Concerns about the medication ...
• Impression that the medication is unnecessary ...
  
• Financial worries ...
  
• Forgetfulness ...
  
• Cultural or religious beliefs ...
• Depression ...
  
• Inability to follow treatment ... 

The relative importance of these seven factors vary greatly across different patients, geographies and pathologies. Any effort by the pharmaceutical industry to support patients must first understand what they need, what the specific drivers are for non-adherence in the case of the treatment in question

Consider these faacts:

"US physicians spend on average 16 minuteswith a patient, but only 49 seconds explaining new treatments"

Of those 49 seconds, are spent talking about directions for administration and about side effects, while a clear understanding of side effects before initiating treatment has a positive as opposed to a negative effect on adherence.

Increased adherence to hypertension and cholesterol medicines would reduce healthcare spending by $4 to $5 for every new dollar spent on medicines.

A 10% adherence to asthma medications was associated with a nearly 5% decrease in total annual medical spending.

Patients who take medications as doctors direct may save as much as $7,800 each year.

Health care professionals have more experience in selecting and processing digital information than the industry has experience in making it! Whereas information for healthcare professionals is basically about reliable and valid information, the format of it should be both appealing and interactively enough to gain and hold the interest of the professionals.

..

Indeed: “Pharma companies are far from realizing their App market potential,” is the conclusion of research done. See here. Seven in ten doctors even have a self-tracking patient, says Manhattan reserach, quoted here. See some other statistics on tele- and mhealth here. Health care is moving towards integrated care in eHealth: 76% of Patients Would Choose Telehealth Over Human Contact with their care provider! (survey).

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There is a definite expectation among health care professionals about the impact of digital information to the quality of care. Beyond information on the drug itself, one is definitely in need of information about both background and consequences of using the drug in the perspective of practice of care: how would the drug facilitate the process of care, patients’ compliance, outcome of care and both patients’ and physicians’ satisfaction with their use.

..

Based upon the survey results above, one would like to add the third dimension: development!
Development of dynamic edetails is more crucial than to produce a good looking app. Apps need to further interactivity and engagement. They must stimulate the journey of the professional through the information about the drug, leading to connectedness both for persons of reference and for further information. Indeed the very relationship with other (multichannel) sites and communications is relevant to the attractiveness to target professionals.

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But still another aspect is crucial to success in the long run: how does the organization respond to the challenges that edetailing poses to the firm’s current routines of promotion? Creating an app is one. But to handle it in promotion to doctors and other health professionals demands internal training and organization.

..It means that the design of the app and its use needs to follow the pace of individual learning and of internal change and development; a change that would also relate to development of internal culture of orientation: from an “inside-out product orientation”, to an “outside-in orientation on best practice of therapy”!

A perspective on the big trends that are changing pharmaceutical sales and the new best practices and opportunities those trends inspire.

At the Health Experience Project, we believe the right experience can change everything. Every day, the Health Experience Project explores the experiences that are changing outcomes for people, for professionals, and for brands. In this report, we’ve curated some of our most important findings from the frontlines. Inside, you’ll find the big trends that are changing pharmaceutical sales and the new best practices and opportunities those trends are inspiring.

Designing the Pharma Rep Experience for 2015 brings together research from the Health Experience Project, GSW, and other experts across our industry. SECONDARY RESEARCH FROM: Manhattan Research, ZS Associates, PwC, Booz Allen Hamilton, Accenture, Hay Group, INSEAD, IBM, Deloitte Special thanks to our core contributors: Alex Brock, Bill Robinson, Dawn Marinacci, Joy Hart, Kevin Coleman, Leigh Householder, Matt Cash, Michael Krohn, Nick Bartlett, Ritesh Patel, Ryan Deshazer, Tyler Durbin HANDS ON EXPERIENCES WITH: RepLab: Exclusive think tank that brings together field reps from our contract sales team with iQ, our product development lab Rep rides: Accumulated experience from over 100 rep rides around the world Global digital collaborative: 62 specialists from across our global network committed to innovation

What are the three letters that spell out a death knell for social media in pharma?

Manhattan Research Releases New iPad Rep Report to Help Pharma Optimize Investments in 2012...