Viewpoint paper

Respond fasterUsing analytics mobility and collaboration for marketing and sales

Table of contents

2 The prescription network the pharmaceutical industryrsquos collective customer

4 Changing objectives when influencing traditional marketing decision points

6 Core modules for influencing the prescription network

9 Transforming the life sciences marketing environment the way forward

9 About the author

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

1

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

The current scenario in the pharmaceutical and life sciences industry is a familiar one Drug development costs are rising This is coupled with poor approvals generic competition and an exorbitant percentage of dollars spent to commercialize new drugs under regulated prices These are among the many factors haunting leaders and laggards in this complex industry Analytics mobility and collaboration can help your marketing and sales functions address these and other challenges

During the past 25 years discussions and strategies for optimizing pharmaceutical and life sciences industry performance have led to the emergence of new business trends These have included open innovation precompetitive partnerships and alliances between pure-play biotechnology firms and pharmaceutical companies

There has been a surge of molecular data at the genomic and proteomic levels This transformed the life sciences industry into one that increasingly relies on churning information from terabytes of data to gain critical insight

The search for improved therapeutics through a big-data approach has spawned a host of data- driven initiatives and consortia These efforts have met with partial success But the challenge of infusing life into blockbuster drug prescriptions and building a strong context around emerging trendsmdashsuch as personalized medicine and evidence-based medicinemdashremains unresolved1

Consequently the skewed and disproportionate spends on various activities in the drug commercialization process signal a paradigm shift for the pharma-life sciences industry Aging populations and the spread of chronic diseases across geographies require the industry to explore new markets Companies need to shift focus toward disrupting dogmas that have defined the target patient the patientrsquos disease and the treatment Yet the path to such radical transformation is riddled with difficulties regarding to anticipating patient needs placing patients within context of the larger healthcare ecosystem and getting value from new patient and disease market opportunities

This paper offers a perspective on how analytics mobility and collaboration can be used to help your marketing and sales functions address these challenges

1 rdquoUnraveling the complexities of life sciences datardquo Big Data Journal Higdon R et al 2012

Insights

bull Prescription networks are emerging as the collective customers of the changing pharmaceutical and life sciences industry

bull The marketing function in the pharmaceutical and life sciences industry is shifting toward a data-driven consultative relationship with the prescription network

bull Integrating analytics mobility and collaboration tools can help marketing and sales teams in the life sciences sector engage effectively with prescription networks

2

The prescription network the pharmaceutical industryrsquos collective customer

The marketing function may be the most challenge-ridden aspect of the life sciences sector (see Figure 1) The industry operates as a tightly regulated innovation environment It is characterized by a low turnover of therapeutic commercialization and strict government regulations on pricing and promotion strategies2

The life sciences marketing function often reaches critical decision points at various stages of therapeutic development and commercialization These points involve activities that are fundamental to creating and marketing a drug however the target customer environment has become increasingly complicated

For instance the social network PatientsLikeMe helps patients with a specific disease interact openly with similar people across the globe on a wide array of topics ranging from medication to quality of the physician Yet another mobile application helps patients define their symptoms and get information on medication doctors and the latest procedures associated with their disease

Empowering todayrsquos patient calls for pharmaceutical companies to focus their marketing on ldquoprescription networksrdquomdashecosystems of patients payers and physicians This requires them to center discussions around patient populations affected by specific diseases and adopt a consultative approach while engaging with the physician3

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

2 ldquoBiopharmaceutical marketing excellencerdquo Journal of Medical Marketing Roselund T et al 2004

3 ldquoThe network is the customer Setting the stage for fundamental change in pharmaceutical sales and marketingrdquo Journal of Medical Marketing Pesse M et al 2006

Figure 1 Life sciences marketing challenges

bull Building an interactive dialogue with the physician A critical challenge for marketing teams and the sales force is getting more face time with doctors to present a compelling case for prescription Sales representatives typically have less than one minute to deliver the pitch

bull Segmenting markets and catching up with payer-patient dynamics Population genetics has replaced demographics and medication efficacy as the linchpin of successful segmentation The emergence of personalized medicine and pay-for-performance models has challenged the industry to go beyond market sizing to disease population mapping to deliver personalized and preventive care

bull Engaging the patient as a key influencer The emergence of patient social networks and their influence on prescription compliance have called for pharmaceutical firms to leverage patients as advocates and opinion leaders and engage them as co-creators of therapeutic innovations

bull Building a suitable feedback mechanism Life sciences companies continue to battle with managing information feedback loops that could enable data exchange and integration between sales and marketing teams with the larger organization

3

Five game-changing behaviors are driving marketingrsquos transformation from a core physician-targeted activity into an intricate agenda of structured and unstructured interactions across the prescription network4 (see Figure 2)

Increasing impact of pay for performanceThe payer community in most nations is becoming wary of supporting pharmaceutical prescriptions and doling out payments for clinical consulting They are shifting focus to compensating only those therapies or prescription services that demonstrate positive health impact The availability of data is enabling healthcare payer communities to evaluate therapeutic efficacy prescription trends and patient adherence to therapy as barometers to vouching for a good therapeutic candidate for patient populations

Increasing influence of global disease burdenRecent studies by the WHO suggest that the diseases labeled ldquodiseases of affluencerdquomdashincluding diabetes cardiovascular disorders obesity cancer and osteoporosismdashare affecting individual life spans in developing nations Contrary to popular belief more than 70 of deaths from these chronic diseases occur in emerging economies not developed ones

The numbers suggest an important trend The new consumers of therapeutics for lifestyle and genetic diseases are located in India China Southeast Asia Africa and regions where generic therapies are easier to access than expensive blockbuster therapies One example is the price-point innovation by some Indian generic manufacturers for the cancer drug Nexavar that makes the drug available at a price thatrsquos lower than the iPad2

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

4 Pricewaterhouse Coopers (2009)rdquoPharma 2020 Marketing the future Which path will you takerdquo PricewaterhouseCoopers 2009

Figure 2 Behaviors altering the healthcare landscape

Healthcareecosystem

Focus onpreventive and

personalizedmedicine

Social communitiesof patients and

physicians

New businessmodels

Influence of global disease

burden

Pay for performance

4

Shift from prescriptive to preventive and personalized medicineUnderstanding the genetic basis of diseasemdashcoupled with more than 1500 targets post-sequencing the human genomemdashhas increased patientsrsquo awareness of their disease risk New-age biotechnology firms are spawning theragnostics and therapeutics in the personalized medicine space

Big pharma is lapping these up to help capitalize on the US$210 billion market for personalized medicine And investments have increased across preventive care and wearable patient monitoring systems that help patients and people with disease risk manage their health conditions more effectively

Patients like me you and everyone elseAn offshoot of the industry-changing behaviors listed previously is the growing influence of social media During the past decade more than 20 patient and physician communities have emerged in cyberspace A fair share of these communities is redefining physician and patient roles

Studies on social media activity show that patients in developed nations are relying more on medication advice from social networks and people with similar disease conditions Similarly physician communities are driving decisions toward adopting the most suitable treatment options

Compounding the positioning problem is the gradual increase in over-the-counter and online medication ordering This is becoming a norm across the United States and Europe and increasing the viability of a cyberspace revenue model

New business and technology commercialization modelsChanging paradigms have led life sciences companies to adopt new business models These models rely on crowd funding and crowd sourcing that enable internal teams and the payer physician and patient communities to help develop specialized therapeutics Certain business models in the cloud infrastructure are helping accelerate innovation from new users and clinical trials designed by patients

Changing objectives when influencing traditional marketing decision points

These behaviors have challenged the way life sciences marketing functions handle the decision points for therapy creation launch and promotion (see Figure 3)

bull Therapy creation This is largely the domain of pharmaceutical firmsrsquo RampD departments It is usually also the basis for devising the organizationrsquos marketing strategy Therapy creation typically comprises therapeutic pipeline design alliance formation and therapeutic segmentation And industry players unanimously agree the fundamental objectives of therapy creation must be

ndash To design theragnostics that address emerging personalized medicine trends

ndash To build synergy across potential innovation partners and marketing allies to enhance prospects of market leadership and penetration

ndash To develop long-term solutions for disease cure as opposed to disease management

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

5

bull Therapy launch When it comes to therapy launch marketing professionals in the life sciences industry have been no different from any other industry The charter to design market entry strategy and build opinion-leader networks has always remained a bone of contention But the complexity of stakeholder interactions in the prescription network has given way to two critical concerns while reaching out to global markets

ndash Building a global pricing mechanism that is unaffected by regional pricing models

ndash Influencing local community doctors to drive medication diffusion and compliance

bull Therapy promotion The final and most important phasemdashgetting the physician to recommend the drug and reaching out to the prescription networkmdashis opening up for transformation Life sciences companies are shying away from standard metrics of product sample use and designing their sales and communications agenda purely on financial returns Instead they are asking two fundamental questions

ndash How do we focus on building relationships between the sales force and physicians

ndash How do we better engage with patients

Together the concerns aired across the three critical decision points boil down to two fundamental actions

bull Understand the new ldquohealthcarerdquo market

bull Build sustainable relationships with the doctor and patient communities to lead the market

While these action items reflect the core of marketing the changing behaviors imply that consumers and physicians are becoming increasingly IT savvy They are collaborating to ensure accelerated cure and ultimately influencing the drugrsquos fate

Given the global scale it is important that a pharmaceutical companyrsquos marketing and sales functions shift to a collaborative ecosystemmdashone that engages the right mix of data analysis personal customer interaction and collaboration This will help ensure the sales rep gets more than 60 seconds to convince the provider of the therapyrsquos benefits

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

Figure 3 Critical marketing functions in the life sciences environment

Therapy creation

Core activities

Paradigmshifts

Therapy launch Therapy promotion

bull Therapy pipeline formationbull Innovation alliance formationbull Therapy positioning

bull Personalized medicinebull Synergies across innovation partners and marketing alliesbull Disease cure solutions

bull Global price mechanismbull Local doctors as key regional influencers

bull Sustained physician sales rep relationshipsbull Patient engagement

bull Global market entry timingbull Key opinion leader selection

bull Sales force managementbull Communication managementbull Patient compliance stimulation

6

Core modules for influencing the prescription network

The scale of activities in the typical life sciences companyrsquos marketing environment provides many opportunities for innovation through IT in terms of understanding data and communicating with potential customers This implies a transformation into holistic and interactive functions driven by three information-intensive modules built on a core IT foundation (see Figure 4)

bull The analytics module A data-driven component that uses all data formats to generate insights for therapeutic development and patient stratification

bull The mobility module An enabler of real-time engagement among the sales representative physician and patient communities and expertise within the organization

bull The collaboration module A cloud-based environment that facilitates interaction and drives innovation partnerships between the life sciences organization and stakeholder communities

The three modules would seamlessly integrate to create information that helps design channel and regional marketing activities They would also facilitate tracking of the stakeholder environment through IT-empowered medical representatives and marketing strategists in the life sciences organization But with typical life sciences IT investments 3 or less of the total revenue it is important to take a sequential approach to effectively integrate analytics- and mobility-driven solutions for greater returns5 (see Figure 5)

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

5 Pricewaterhouse Coopers (2009)rdquoPharma 2020 Marketing the future Which path will you takerdquo PricewaterhouseCoopers 2009

Figure 4 Innovation points in the life sciences sales and marketing environment

Innovation

Integratedmarketing

communication

Salesoptimization

Marketresearch

Marketsegmentation

andpositioning

bull Leverage disease- specific insight for personalized medicine

bull Increase points of collaboration and communication between stakeholders

bull Focus on value creation and relationship management

bull Build on insights to create disruptive segmentation for complex diseases across markets

7

1 Evaluate critical decision points to identify the data-driven and people-driven functionsLife sciences marketing practitioners would agree analytics solutions are more relevant across patient segmentation pricing and sales force planning activitiesmdashas opposed to activities that involve a high degree of human interaction This is largely because analytics works well only in avenues that offer ample opportunity for significant data generation

Pharmaceutical and life sciences organizations conventionally invest in complex analytics solution packages But the returns on these solutions often are not as expected A primary reason is the poor fit between the organizationrsquos core activities and analytics platform functionality

From a marketing perspective life sciences organizations should make an investment in analytics software that supports critical data-intensive activities for their particular environment Some organizations may need a robust analytics solution for sales pipeline analytics Others would need it for product planning

The key to successfully implementing an analytics solution for the life sciences marketing environment is this Clearly delineate the data-intensive components from the social-intensive components and invest only in the aspects that are repeated and irreplaceable data sources for insights

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

Figure 5 The transformed IT-enabled pharmaceutical sales and marketing enterprise

IT integratedpharmaceutical

marketing

Analyticsmodule

Collaborationmodule

Communicationmodule

Enable informationleverage to design channel

marketing activity

Facilitate tracking of patientmedicine consumption

behavior and track pharmaretail purchase

Facilitate online and on-site dialogue among

sales rep clinical andcompany SME

Communicate real-timeinformation to field sales

rep in real time

Generate real-timeinsight on market andpatient stratification

8

2 Choose the right kind of analytics module to maximize outcome of critical decision pointsIn managing decision points regarding pharmaceutical sales and marketing environments a common challenge is the inability to effectively manage huge data streams

It is important for life sciences firms to invest in analytics platforms that offer twin capabilities indexing and contextualizing data into meaningful information and handling data in various formatsmdashfrom structured data such as spreadsheets to unstructured data such as patient comments on social media

For instance conventional marketing decision-support platforms can be augmented with capabilities to analyze patient and clinician survey data speech and focus group patient interactions This will enable them to create structured insights on patient disease groups and facilitate improved reach of targeted therapeutics among those groups

3 Use mobility solutions to create interaction touch points for communicationThe life sciences sales representative has only 60 seconds to convince a doctor of the productrsquos merits This is largely due to the use of conventional modesmdashbrochures sales collateral product samplesmdashto communicate the benefits Transformative mobility solutionsmdashincluding custom applets to talk about the product and video capabilities integrated into the sales reprsquos iPhone or tabletmdashcan help them engage in interactive conversations with the physician

Real-time connectivity solutions coupled with applets to capture CRM data would enable marketing organizations to gain critical insight from various touch points

4 Integrate market and CRM applets on private cloud environments and open co-creation environmentsIn a prescription network the communication touch points across payer groups physicians and patient communities would generate a wealth of information Much of this information could help marketing teams design and optimize their therapeutic pipelines

There is also the larger perspective of addressing therapy-creation and therapy-launch challenges Life sciences companies must integrate internal software and CRM software with mobility solutions This will improve efficiencies and accuracy in addressing patient demands in the pay-for-performance environment

Another important outcome of integration in cloud environments is the ability to co-create therapeutics with core customers and influencers Cloud- based environments for collaboration enable marketing teams to reach out to physician communities en masse They can generate and optimize new product ideas and markets while accessing patient feedback on existing therapeutics

This collaboration also would help marketing organizations improve therapy diffusion by creating a sense of ldquoidea ownershiprdquo among participating stakeholders Plus the per-region cost of deploying sales force would be greatly reduced through the use of media such as real-time web interaction models and mobility solutions

In effect using IT to transform the marketing and sales environment in the life sciences organization adds up to four key action items

1 Engage with the payer provider and patient communities to improve therapeutic penetration across markets

2 Use cloud and mobility as primary media for engaging physicians

3 Drive patient compliance to medication by using patients as key opinion leaders

4 Build a collaborative internal ecosystem that facilitates the exchange of information and ideas between the sales and marketing functions and the larger organization

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

9

Transforming the life sciences marketing environment the way forward

The impact of paradigm shifts in the life sciences marketing function is evident The challenge remains to ensure these marketing functions remain dynamic and sensitive to market and consumer needs at all times

The shift is partially addressed by the availability of IT solutions such as the analytics collaboration and mobility modules discussed in this paper But to build out truly responsive environments using these IT-enabled technologies they must be mapped to organizational strategy and into the core competencies of the marketing function This will help life sciences organizations create therapies build awareness and enable effective uptake of therapies among patients

For more information on transforming your marketing and sales function into an intuitive environment Visit hpcomenterprisehealthcare

About the author

Bhuvaneashwar SubramanianBhuvaneashwar Subramanian is a program manager and subject-matter expert with the HP Life Sciences Market and Sales Intelligence Practice of Global AnalyticsmdashCorporate Strategy and Alliances Division He collaborates extensively on strategy formulation thought leadership and sales enablement initiatives for the life sciences industry

Subramanian contributes thought leadership on cloud computing in life sciences and industry studies on translational research He also provides his expertise to national and international life sciences organizations and is a member of the Open Innovation Task Force for Nanobiotechnology at the University of Waterloo in Canada

Bhuvaneashwar Subramanian holds a masterrsquos degree in molecular genetics from Banaras Hindu University in India He has an MBA in international business from Edith Cowan University in Australia

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

Table of contents

2 The prescription network the pharmaceutical industryrsquos collective customer

4 Changing objectives when influencing traditional marketing decision points

6 Core modules for influencing the prescription network

9 Transforming the life sciences marketing environment the way forward

9 About the author

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

1

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

The current scenario in the pharmaceutical and life sciences industry is a familiar one Drug development costs are rising This is coupled with poor approvals generic competition and an exorbitant percentage of dollars spent to commercialize new drugs under regulated prices These are among the many factors haunting leaders and laggards in this complex industry Analytics mobility and collaboration can help your marketing and sales functions address these and other challenges

During the past 25 years discussions and strategies for optimizing pharmaceutical and life sciences industry performance have led to the emergence of new business trends These have included open innovation precompetitive partnerships and alliances between pure-play biotechnology firms and pharmaceutical companies

There has been a surge of molecular data at the genomic and proteomic levels This transformed the life sciences industry into one that increasingly relies on churning information from terabytes of data to gain critical insight

The search for improved therapeutics through a big-data approach has spawned a host of data- driven initiatives and consortia These efforts have met with partial success But the challenge of infusing life into blockbuster drug prescriptions and building a strong context around emerging trendsmdashsuch as personalized medicine and evidence-based medicinemdashremains unresolved1

Consequently the skewed and disproportionate spends on various activities in the drug commercialization process signal a paradigm shift for the pharma-life sciences industry Aging populations and the spread of chronic diseases across geographies require the industry to explore new markets Companies need to shift focus toward disrupting dogmas that have defined the target patient the patientrsquos disease and the treatment Yet the path to such radical transformation is riddled with difficulties regarding to anticipating patient needs placing patients within context of the larger healthcare ecosystem and getting value from new patient and disease market opportunities

This paper offers a perspective on how analytics mobility and collaboration can be used to help your marketing and sales functions address these challenges

1 rdquoUnraveling the complexities of life sciences datardquo Big Data Journal Higdon R et al 2012

Insights

bull Prescription networks are emerging as the collective customers of the changing pharmaceutical and life sciences industry

bull The marketing function in the pharmaceutical and life sciences industry is shifting toward a data-driven consultative relationship with the prescription network

bull Integrating analytics mobility and collaboration tools can help marketing and sales teams in the life sciences sector engage effectively with prescription networks

2

The prescription network the pharmaceutical industryrsquos collective customer

The marketing function may be the most challenge-ridden aspect of the life sciences sector (see Figure 1) The industry operates as a tightly regulated innovation environment It is characterized by a low turnover of therapeutic commercialization and strict government regulations on pricing and promotion strategies2

The life sciences marketing function often reaches critical decision points at various stages of therapeutic development and commercialization These points involve activities that are fundamental to creating and marketing a drug however the target customer environment has become increasingly complicated

For instance the social network PatientsLikeMe helps patients with a specific disease interact openly with similar people across the globe on a wide array of topics ranging from medication to quality of the physician Yet another mobile application helps patients define their symptoms and get information on medication doctors and the latest procedures associated with their disease

Empowering todayrsquos patient calls for pharmaceutical companies to focus their marketing on ldquoprescription networksrdquomdashecosystems of patients payers and physicians This requires them to center discussions around patient populations affected by specific diseases and adopt a consultative approach while engaging with the physician3

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

2 ldquoBiopharmaceutical marketing excellencerdquo Journal of Medical Marketing Roselund T et al 2004

3 ldquoThe network is the customer Setting the stage for fundamental change in pharmaceutical sales and marketingrdquo Journal of Medical Marketing Pesse M et al 2006

Figure 1 Life sciences marketing challenges

bull Building an interactive dialogue with the physician A critical challenge for marketing teams and the sales force is getting more face time with doctors to present a compelling case for prescription Sales representatives typically have less than one minute to deliver the pitch

bull Segmenting markets and catching up with payer-patient dynamics Population genetics has replaced demographics and medication efficacy as the linchpin of successful segmentation The emergence of personalized medicine and pay-for-performance models has challenged the industry to go beyond market sizing to disease population mapping to deliver personalized and preventive care

bull Engaging the patient as a key influencer The emergence of patient social networks and their influence on prescription compliance have called for pharmaceutical firms to leverage patients as advocates and opinion leaders and engage them as co-creators of therapeutic innovations

bull Building a suitable feedback mechanism Life sciences companies continue to battle with managing information feedback loops that could enable data exchange and integration between sales and marketing teams with the larger organization

3

Five game-changing behaviors are driving marketingrsquos transformation from a core physician-targeted activity into an intricate agenda of structured and unstructured interactions across the prescription network4 (see Figure 2)

Increasing impact of pay for performanceThe payer community in most nations is becoming wary of supporting pharmaceutical prescriptions and doling out payments for clinical consulting They are shifting focus to compensating only those therapies or prescription services that demonstrate positive health impact The availability of data is enabling healthcare payer communities to evaluate therapeutic efficacy prescription trends and patient adherence to therapy as barometers to vouching for a good therapeutic candidate for patient populations

Increasing influence of global disease burdenRecent studies by the WHO suggest that the diseases labeled ldquodiseases of affluencerdquomdashincluding diabetes cardiovascular disorders obesity cancer and osteoporosismdashare affecting individual life spans in developing nations Contrary to popular belief more than 70 of deaths from these chronic diseases occur in emerging economies not developed ones

The numbers suggest an important trend The new consumers of therapeutics for lifestyle and genetic diseases are located in India China Southeast Asia Africa and regions where generic therapies are easier to access than expensive blockbuster therapies One example is the price-point innovation by some Indian generic manufacturers for the cancer drug Nexavar that makes the drug available at a price thatrsquos lower than the iPad2

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

4 Pricewaterhouse Coopers (2009)rdquoPharma 2020 Marketing the future Which path will you takerdquo PricewaterhouseCoopers 2009

Figure 2 Behaviors altering the healthcare landscape

Healthcareecosystem

Focus onpreventive and

personalizedmedicine

Social communitiesof patients and

physicians

New businessmodels

Influence of global disease

burden

Pay for performance

4

Shift from prescriptive to preventive and personalized medicineUnderstanding the genetic basis of diseasemdashcoupled with more than 1500 targets post-sequencing the human genomemdashhas increased patientsrsquo awareness of their disease risk New-age biotechnology firms are spawning theragnostics and therapeutics in the personalized medicine space

Big pharma is lapping these up to help capitalize on the US$210 billion market for personalized medicine And investments have increased across preventive care and wearable patient monitoring systems that help patients and people with disease risk manage their health conditions more effectively

Patients like me you and everyone elseAn offshoot of the industry-changing behaviors listed previously is the growing influence of social media During the past decade more than 20 patient and physician communities have emerged in cyberspace A fair share of these communities is redefining physician and patient roles

Studies on social media activity show that patients in developed nations are relying more on medication advice from social networks and people with similar disease conditions Similarly physician communities are driving decisions toward adopting the most suitable treatment options

Compounding the positioning problem is the gradual increase in over-the-counter and online medication ordering This is becoming a norm across the United States and Europe and increasing the viability of a cyberspace revenue model

New business and technology commercialization modelsChanging paradigms have led life sciences companies to adopt new business models These models rely on crowd funding and crowd sourcing that enable internal teams and the payer physician and patient communities to help develop specialized therapeutics Certain business models in the cloud infrastructure are helping accelerate innovation from new users and clinical trials designed by patients

Changing objectives when influencing traditional marketing decision points

These behaviors have challenged the way life sciences marketing functions handle the decision points for therapy creation launch and promotion (see Figure 3)

bull Therapy creation This is largely the domain of pharmaceutical firmsrsquo RampD departments It is usually also the basis for devising the organizationrsquos marketing strategy Therapy creation typically comprises therapeutic pipeline design alliance formation and therapeutic segmentation And industry players unanimously agree the fundamental objectives of therapy creation must be

ndash To design theragnostics that address emerging personalized medicine trends

ndash To build synergy across potential innovation partners and marketing allies to enhance prospects of market leadership and penetration

ndash To develop long-term solutions for disease cure as opposed to disease management

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

5

bull Therapy launch When it comes to therapy launch marketing professionals in the life sciences industry have been no different from any other industry The charter to design market entry strategy and build opinion-leader networks has always remained a bone of contention But the complexity of stakeholder interactions in the prescription network has given way to two critical concerns while reaching out to global markets

ndash Building a global pricing mechanism that is unaffected by regional pricing models

ndash Influencing local community doctors to drive medication diffusion and compliance

bull Therapy promotion The final and most important phasemdashgetting the physician to recommend the drug and reaching out to the prescription networkmdashis opening up for transformation Life sciences companies are shying away from standard metrics of product sample use and designing their sales and communications agenda purely on financial returns Instead they are asking two fundamental questions

ndash How do we focus on building relationships between the sales force and physicians

ndash How do we better engage with patients

Together the concerns aired across the three critical decision points boil down to two fundamental actions

bull Understand the new ldquohealthcarerdquo market

bull Build sustainable relationships with the doctor and patient communities to lead the market

While these action items reflect the core of marketing the changing behaviors imply that consumers and physicians are becoming increasingly IT savvy They are collaborating to ensure accelerated cure and ultimately influencing the drugrsquos fate

Given the global scale it is important that a pharmaceutical companyrsquos marketing and sales functions shift to a collaborative ecosystemmdashone that engages the right mix of data analysis personal customer interaction and collaboration This will help ensure the sales rep gets more than 60 seconds to convince the provider of the therapyrsquos benefits

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

Figure 3 Critical marketing functions in the life sciences environment

Therapy creation

Core activities

Paradigmshifts

Therapy launch Therapy promotion

bull Therapy pipeline formationbull Innovation alliance formationbull Therapy positioning

bull Personalized medicinebull Synergies across innovation partners and marketing alliesbull Disease cure solutions

bull Global price mechanismbull Local doctors as key regional influencers

bull Sustained physician sales rep relationshipsbull Patient engagement

bull Global market entry timingbull Key opinion leader selection

bull Sales force managementbull Communication managementbull Patient compliance stimulation

6

Core modules for influencing the prescription network

The scale of activities in the typical life sciences companyrsquos marketing environment provides many opportunities for innovation through IT in terms of understanding data and communicating with potential customers This implies a transformation into holistic and interactive functions driven by three information-intensive modules built on a core IT foundation (see Figure 4)

bull The analytics module A data-driven component that uses all data formats to generate insights for therapeutic development and patient stratification

bull The mobility module An enabler of real-time engagement among the sales representative physician and patient communities and expertise within the organization

bull The collaboration module A cloud-based environment that facilitates interaction and drives innovation partnerships between the life sciences organization and stakeholder communities

The three modules would seamlessly integrate to create information that helps design channel and regional marketing activities They would also facilitate tracking of the stakeholder environment through IT-empowered medical representatives and marketing strategists in the life sciences organization But with typical life sciences IT investments 3 or less of the total revenue it is important to take a sequential approach to effectively integrate analytics- and mobility-driven solutions for greater returns5 (see Figure 5)

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

5 Pricewaterhouse Coopers (2009)rdquoPharma 2020 Marketing the future Which path will you takerdquo PricewaterhouseCoopers 2009

Figure 4 Innovation points in the life sciences sales and marketing environment

Innovation

Integratedmarketing

communication

Salesoptimization

Marketresearch

Marketsegmentation

andpositioning

bull Leverage disease- specific insight for personalized medicine

bull Increase points of collaboration and communication between stakeholders

bull Focus on value creation and relationship management

bull Build on insights to create disruptive segmentation for complex diseases across markets

7

1 Evaluate critical decision points to identify the data-driven and people-driven functionsLife sciences marketing practitioners would agree analytics solutions are more relevant across patient segmentation pricing and sales force planning activitiesmdashas opposed to activities that involve a high degree of human interaction This is largely because analytics works well only in avenues that offer ample opportunity for significant data generation

Pharmaceutical and life sciences organizations conventionally invest in complex analytics solution packages But the returns on these solutions often are not as expected A primary reason is the poor fit between the organizationrsquos core activities and analytics platform functionality

From a marketing perspective life sciences organizations should make an investment in analytics software that supports critical data-intensive activities for their particular environment Some organizations may need a robust analytics solution for sales pipeline analytics Others would need it for product planning

The key to successfully implementing an analytics solution for the life sciences marketing environment is this Clearly delineate the data-intensive components from the social-intensive components and invest only in the aspects that are repeated and irreplaceable data sources for insights

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

Figure 5 The transformed IT-enabled pharmaceutical sales and marketing enterprise

IT integratedpharmaceutical

marketing

Analyticsmodule

Collaborationmodule

Communicationmodule

Enable informationleverage to design channel

marketing activity

Facilitate tracking of patientmedicine consumption

behavior and track pharmaretail purchase

Facilitate online and on-site dialogue among

sales rep clinical andcompany SME

Communicate real-timeinformation to field sales

rep in real time

Generate real-timeinsight on market andpatient stratification

8

2 Choose the right kind of analytics module to maximize outcome of critical decision pointsIn managing decision points regarding pharmaceutical sales and marketing environments a common challenge is the inability to effectively manage huge data streams

It is important for life sciences firms to invest in analytics platforms that offer twin capabilities indexing and contextualizing data into meaningful information and handling data in various formatsmdashfrom structured data such as spreadsheets to unstructured data such as patient comments on social media

For instance conventional marketing decision-support platforms can be augmented with capabilities to analyze patient and clinician survey data speech and focus group patient interactions This will enable them to create structured insights on patient disease groups and facilitate improved reach of targeted therapeutics among those groups

3 Use mobility solutions to create interaction touch points for communicationThe life sciences sales representative has only 60 seconds to convince a doctor of the productrsquos merits This is largely due to the use of conventional modesmdashbrochures sales collateral product samplesmdashto communicate the benefits Transformative mobility solutionsmdashincluding custom applets to talk about the product and video capabilities integrated into the sales reprsquos iPhone or tabletmdashcan help them engage in interactive conversations with the physician

Real-time connectivity solutions coupled with applets to capture CRM data would enable marketing organizations to gain critical insight from various touch points

4 Integrate market and CRM applets on private cloud environments and open co-creation environmentsIn a prescription network the communication touch points across payer groups physicians and patient communities would generate a wealth of information Much of this information could help marketing teams design and optimize their therapeutic pipelines

There is also the larger perspective of addressing therapy-creation and therapy-launch challenges Life sciences companies must integrate internal software and CRM software with mobility solutions This will improve efficiencies and accuracy in addressing patient demands in the pay-for-performance environment

Another important outcome of integration in cloud environments is the ability to co-create therapeutics with core customers and influencers Cloud- based environments for collaboration enable marketing teams to reach out to physician communities en masse They can generate and optimize new product ideas and markets while accessing patient feedback on existing therapeutics

This collaboration also would help marketing organizations improve therapy diffusion by creating a sense of ldquoidea ownershiprdquo among participating stakeholders Plus the per-region cost of deploying sales force would be greatly reduced through the use of media such as real-time web interaction models and mobility solutions

In effect using IT to transform the marketing and sales environment in the life sciences organization adds up to four key action items

1 Engage with the payer provider and patient communities to improve therapeutic penetration across markets

2 Use cloud and mobility as primary media for engaging physicians

3 Drive patient compliance to medication by using patients as key opinion leaders

4 Build a collaborative internal ecosystem that facilitates the exchange of information and ideas between the sales and marketing functions and the larger organization

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

9

Transforming the life sciences marketing environment the way forward

The impact of paradigm shifts in the life sciences marketing function is evident The challenge remains to ensure these marketing functions remain dynamic and sensitive to market and consumer needs at all times

The shift is partially addressed by the availability of IT solutions such as the analytics collaboration and mobility modules discussed in this paper But to build out truly responsive environments using these IT-enabled technologies they must be mapped to organizational strategy and into the core competencies of the marketing function This will help life sciences organizations create therapies build awareness and enable effective uptake of therapies among patients

For more information on transforming your marketing and sales function into an intuitive environment Visit hpcomenterprisehealthcare

About the author

Bhuvaneashwar SubramanianBhuvaneashwar Subramanian is a program manager and subject-matter expert with the HP Life Sciences Market and Sales Intelligence Practice of Global AnalyticsmdashCorporate Strategy and Alliances Division He collaborates extensively on strategy formulation thought leadership and sales enablement initiatives for the life sciences industry

Subramanian contributes thought leadership on cloud computing in life sciences and industry studies on translational research He also provides his expertise to national and international life sciences organizations and is a member of the Open Innovation Task Force for Nanobiotechnology at the University of Waterloo in Canada

Bhuvaneashwar Subramanian holds a masterrsquos degree in molecular genetics from Banaras Hindu University in India He has an MBA in international business from Edith Cowan University in Australia

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

1

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

The current scenario in the pharmaceutical and life sciences industry is a familiar one Drug development costs are rising This is coupled with poor approvals generic competition and an exorbitant percentage of dollars spent to commercialize new drugs under regulated prices These are among the many factors haunting leaders and laggards in this complex industry Analytics mobility and collaboration can help your marketing and sales functions address these and other challenges

During the past 25 years discussions and strategies for optimizing pharmaceutical and life sciences industry performance have led to the emergence of new business trends These have included open innovation precompetitive partnerships and alliances between pure-play biotechnology firms and pharmaceutical companies

There has been a surge of molecular data at the genomic and proteomic levels This transformed the life sciences industry into one that increasingly relies on churning information from terabytes of data to gain critical insight

The search for improved therapeutics through a big-data approach has spawned a host of data- driven initiatives and consortia These efforts have met with partial success But the challenge of infusing life into blockbuster drug prescriptions and building a strong context around emerging trendsmdashsuch as personalized medicine and evidence-based medicinemdashremains unresolved1

Consequently the skewed and disproportionate spends on various activities in the drug commercialization process signal a paradigm shift for the pharma-life sciences industry Aging populations and the spread of chronic diseases across geographies require the industry to explore new markets Companies need to shift focus toward disrupting dogmas that have defined the target patient the patientrsquos disease and the treatment Yet the path to such radical transformation is riddled with difficulties regarding to anticipating patient needs placing patients within context of the larger healthcare ecosystem and getting value from new patient and disease market opportunities

This paper offers a perspective on how analytics mobility and collaboration can be used to help your marketing and sales functions address these challenges

1 rdquoUnraveling the complexities of life sciences datardquo Big Data Journal Higdon R et al 2012

Insights

bull Prescription networks are emerging as the collective customers of the changing pharmaceutical and life sciences industry

bull The marketing function in the pharmaceutical and life sciences industry is shifting toward a data-driven consultative relationship with the prescription network

bull Integrating analytics mobility and collaboration tools can help marketing and sales teams in the life sciences sector engage effectively with prescription networks

2

The prescription network the pharmaceutical industryrsquos collective customer

The marketing function may be the most challenge-ridden aspect of the life sciences sector (see Figure 1) The industry operates as a tightly regulated innovation environment It is characterized by a low turnover of therapeutic commercialization and strict government regulations on pricing and promotion strategies2

The life sciences marketing function often reaches critical decision points at various stages of therapeutic development and commercialization These points involve activities that are fundamental to creating and marketing a drug however the target customer environment has become increasingly complicated

For instance the social network PatientsLikeMe helps patients with a specific disease interact openly with similar people across the globe on a wide array of topics ranging from medication to quality of the physician Yet another mobile application helps patients define their symptoms and get information on medication doctors and the latest procedures associated with their disease

Empowering todayrsquos patient calls for pharmaceutical companies to focus their marketing on ldquoprescription networksrdquomdashecosystems of patients payers and physicians This requires them to center discussions around patient populations affected by specific diseases and adopt a consultative approach while engaging with the physician3

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

2 ldquoBiopharmaceutical marketing excellencerdquo Journal of Medical Marketing Roselund T et al 2004

3 ldquoThe network is the customer Setting the stage for fundamental change in pharmaceutical sales and marketingrdquo Journal of Medical Marketing Pesse M et al 2006

Figure 1 Life sciences marketing challenges

bull Building an interactive dialogue with the physician A critical challenge for marketing teams and the sales force is getting more face time with doctors to present a compelling case for prescription Sales representatives typically have less than one minute to deliver the pitch

bull Segmenting markets and catching up with payer-patient dynamics Population genetics has replaced demographics and medication efficacy as the linchpin of successful segmentation The emergence of personalized medicine and pay-for-performance models has challenged the industry to go beyond market sizing to disease population mapping to deliver personalized and preventive care

bull Engaging the patient as a key influencer The emergence of patient social networks and their influence on prescription compliance have called for pharmaceutical firms to leverage patients as advocates and opinion leaders and engage them as co-creators of therapeutic innovations

bull Building a suitable feedback mechanism Life sciences companies continue to battle with managing information feedback loops that could enable data exchange and integration between sales and marketing teams with the larger organization

3

Five game-changing behaviors are driving marketingrsquos transformation from a core physician-targeted activity into an intricate agenda of structured and unstructured interactions across the prescription network4 (see Figure 2)

Increasing impact of pay for performanceThe payer community in most nations is becoming wary of supporting pharmaceutical prescriptions and doling out payments for clinical consulting They are shifting focus to compensating only those therapies or prescription services that demonstrate positive health impact The availability of data is enabling healthcare payer communities to evaluate therapeutic efficacy prescription trends and patient adherence to therapy as barometers to vouching for a good therapeutic candidate for patient populations

Increasing influence of global disease burdenRecent studies by the WHO suggest that the diseases labeled ldquodiseases of affluencerdquomdashincluding diabetes cardiovascular disorders obesity cancer and osteoporosismdashare affecting individual life spans in developing nations Contrary to popular belief more than 70 of deaths from these chronic diseases occur in emerging economies not developed ones

The numbers suggest an important trend The new consumers of therapeutics for lifestyle and genetic diseases are located in India China Southeast Asia Africa and regions where generic therapies are easier to access than expensive blockbuster therapies One example is the price-point innovation by some Indian generic manufacturers for the cancer drug Nexavar that makes the drug available at a price thatrsquos lower than the iPad2

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

4 Pricewaterhouse Coopers (2009)rdquoPharma 2020 Marketing the future Which path will you takerdquo PricewaterhouseCoopers 2009

Figure 2 Behaviors altering the healthcare landscape

Healthcareecosystem

Focus onpreventive and

personalizedmedicine

Social communitiesof patients and

physicians

New businessmodels

Influence of global disease

burden

Pay for performance

4

Shift from prescriptive to preventive and personalized medicineUnderstanding the genetic basis of diseasemdashcoupled with more than 1500 targets post-sequencing the human genomemdashhas increased patientsrsquo awareness of their disease risk New-age biotechnology firms are spawning theragnostics and therapeutics in the personalized medicine space

Big pharma is lapping these up to help capitalize on the US$210 billion market for personalized medicine And investments have increased across preventive care and wearable patient monitoring systems that help patients and people with disease risk manage their health conditions more effectively

Patients like me you and everyone elseAn offshoot of the industry-changing behaviors listed previously is the growing influence of social media During the past decade more than 20 patient and physician communities have emerged in cyberspace A fair share of these communities is redefining physician and patient roles

Studies on social media activity show that patients in developed nations are relying more on medication advice from social networks and people with similar disease conditions Similarly physician communities are driving decisions toward adopting the most suitable treatment options

Compounding the positioning problem is the gradual increase in over-the-counter and online medication ordering This is becoming a norm across the United States and Europe and increasing the viability of a cyberspace revenue model

New business and technology commercialization modelsChanging paradigms have led life sciences companies to adopt new business models These models rely on crowd funding and crowd sourcing that enable internal teams and the payer physician and patient communities to help develop specialized therapeutics Certain business models in the cloud infrastructure are helping accelerate innovation from new users and clinical trials designed by patients

Changing objectives when influencing traditional marketing decision points

These behaviors have challenged the way life sciences marketing functions handle the decision points for therapy creation launch and promotion (see Figure 3)

bull Therapy creation This is largely the domain of pharmaceutical firmsrsquo RampD departments It is usually also the basis for devising the organizationrsquos marketing strategy Therapy creation typically comprises therapeutic pipeline design alliance formation and therapeutic segmentation And industry players unanimously agree the fundamental objectives of therapy creation must be

ndash To design theragnostics that address emerging personalized medicine trends

ndash To build synergy across potential innovation partners and marketing allies to enhance prospects of market leadership and penetration

ndash To develop long-term solutions for disease cure as opposed to disease management

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

5

bull Therapy launch When it comes to therapy launch marketing professionals in the life sciences industry have been no different from any other industry The charter to design market entry strategy and build opinion-leader networks has always remained a bone of contention But the complexity of stakeholder interactions in the prescription network has given way to two critical concerns while reaching out to global markets

ndash Building a global pricing mechanism that is unaffected by regional pricing models

ndash Influencing local community doctors to drive medication diffusion and compliance

bull Therapy promotion The final and most important phasemdashgetting the physician to recommend the drug and reaching out to the prescription networkmdashis opening up for transformation Life sciences companies are shying away from standard metrics of product sample use and designing their sales and communications agenda purely on financial returns Instead they are asking two fundamental questions

ndash How do we focus on building relationships between the sales force and physicians

ndash How do we better engage with patients

Together the concerns aired across the three critical decision points boil down to two fundamental actions

bull Understand the new ldquohealthcarerdquo market

bull Build sustainable relationships with the doctor and patient communities to lead the market

While these action items reflect the core of marketing the changing behaviors imply that consumers and physicians are becoming increasingly IT savvy They are collaborating to ensure accelerated cure and ultimately influencing the drugrsquos fate

Given the global scale it is important that a pharmaceutical companyrsquos marketing and sales functions shift to a collaborative ecosystemmdashone that engages the right mix of data analysis personal customer interaction and collaboration This will help ensure the sales rep gets more than 60 seconds to convince the provider of the therapyrsquos benefits

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

Figure 3 Critical marketing functions in the life sciences environment

Therapy creation

Core activities

Paradigmshifts

Therapy launch Therapy promotion

bull Therapy pipeline formationbull Innovation alliance formationbull Therapy positioning

bull Personalized medicinebull Synergies across innovation partners and marketing alliesbull Disease cure solutions

bull Global price mechanismbull Local doctors as key regional influencers

bull Sustained physician sales rep relationshipsbull Patient engagement

bull Global market entry timingbull Key opinion leader selection

bull Sales force managementbull Communication managementbull Patient compliance stimulation

6

Core modules for influencing the prescription network

The scale of activities in the typical life sciences companyrsquos marketing environment provides many opportunities for innovation through IT in terms of understanding data and communicating with potential customers This implies a transformation into holistic and interactive functions driven by three information-intensive modules built on a core IT foundation (see Figure 4)

bull The analytics module A data-driven component that uses all data formats to generate insights for therapeutic development and patient stratification

bull The mobility module An enabler of real-time engagement among the sales representative physician and patient communities and expertise within the organization

bull The collaboration module A cloud-based environment that facilitates interaction and drives innovation partnerships between the life sciences organization and stakeholder communities

The three modules would seamlessly integrate to create information that helps design channel and regional marketing activities They would also facilitate tracking of the stakeholder environment through IT-empowered medical representatives and marketing strategists in the life sciences organization But with typical life sciences IT investments 3 or less of the total revenue it is important to take a sequential approach to effectively integrate analytics- and mobility-driven solutions for greater returns5 (see Figure 5)

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

5 Pricewaterhouse Coopers (2009)rdquoPharma 2020 Marketing the future Which path will you takerdquo PricewaterhouseCoopers 2009

Figure 4 Innovation points in the life sciences sales and marketing environment

Innovation

Integratedmarketing

communication

Salesoptimization

Marketresearch

Marketsegmentation

andpositioning

bull Leverage disease- specific insight for personalized medicine

bull Increase points of collaboration and communication between stakeholders

bull Focus on value creation and relationship management

bull Build on insights to create disruptive segmentation for complex diseases across markets

7

1 Evaluate critical decision points to identify the data-driven and people-driven functionsLife sciences marketing practitioners would agree analytics solutions are more relevant across patient segmentation pricing and sales force planning activitiesmdashas opposed to activities that involve a high degree of human interaction This is largely because analytics works well only in avenues that offer ample opportunity for significant data generation

Pharmaceutical and life sciences organizations conventionally invest in complex analytics solution packages But the returns on these solutions often are not as expected A primary reason is the poor fit between the organizationrsquos core activities and analytics platform functionality

From a marketing perspective life sciences organizations should make an investment in analytics software that supports critical data-intensive activities for their particular environment Some organizations may need a robust analytics solution for sales pipeline analytics Others would need it for product planning

The key to successfully implementing an analytics solution for the life sciences marketing environment is this Clearly delineate the data-intensive components from the social-intensive components and invest only in the aspects that are repeated and irreplaceable data sources for insights

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

Figure 5 The transformed IT-enabled pharmaceutical sales and marketing enterprise

IT integratedpharmaceutical

marketing

Analyticsmodule

Collaborationmodule

Communicationmodule

Enable informationleverage to design channel

marketing activity

Facilitate tracking of patientmedicine consumption

behavior and track pharmaretail purchase

Facilitate online and on-site dialogue among

sales rep clinical andcompany SME

Communicate real-timeinformation to field sales

rep in real time

Generate real-timeinsight on market andpatient stratification

8

2 Choose the right kind of analytics module to maximize outcome of critical decision pointsIn managing decision points regarding pharmaceutical sales and marketing environments a common challenge is the inability to effectively manage huge data streams

It is important for life sciences firms to invest in analytics platforms that offer twin capabilities indexing and contextualizing data into meaningful information and handling data in various formatsmdashfrom structured data such as spreadsheets to unstructured data such as patient comments on social media

For instance conventional marketing decision-support platforms can be augmented with capabilities to analyze patient and clinician survey data speech and focus group patient interactions This will enable them to create structured insights on patient disease groups and facilitate improved reach of targeted therapeutics among those groups

3 Use mobility solutions to create interaction touch points for communicationThe life sciences sales representative has only 60 seconds to convince a doctor of the productrsquos merits This is largely due to the use of conventional modesmdashbrochures sales collateral product samplesmdashto communicate the benefits Transformative mobility solutionsmdashincluding custom applets to talk about the product and video capabilities integrated into the sales reprsquos iPhone or tabletmdashcan help them engage in interactive conversations with the physician

Real-time connectivity solutions coupled with applets to capture CRM data would enable marketing organizations to gain critical insight from various touch points

4 Integrate market and CRM applets on private cloud environments and open co-creation environmentsIn a prescription network the communication touch points across payer groups physicians and patient communities would generate a wealth of information Much of this information could help marketing teams design and optimize their therapeutic pipelines

There is also the larger perspective of addressing therapy-creation and therapy-launch challenges Life sciences companies must integrate internal software and CRM software with mobility solutions This will improve efficiencies and accuracy in addressing patient demands in the pay-for-performance environment

Another important outcome of integration in cloud environments is the ability to co-create therapeutics with core customers and influencers Cloud- based environments for collaboration enable marketing teams to reach out to physician communities en masse They can generate and optimize new product ideas and markets while accessing patient feedback on existing therapeutics

This collaboration also would help marketing organizations improve therapy diffusion by creating a sense of ldquoidea ownershiprdquo among participating stakeholders Plus the per-region cost of deploying sales force would be greatly reduced through the use of media such as real-time web interaction models and mobility solutions

In effect using IT to transform the marketing and sales environment in the life sciences organization adds up to four key action items

1 Engage with the payer provider and patient communities to improve therapeutic penetration across markets

2 Use cloud and mobility as primary media for engaging physicians

3 Drive patient compliance to medication by using patients as key opinion leaders

4 Build a collaborative internal ecosystem that facilitates the exchange of information and ideas between the sales and marketing functions and the larger organization

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

9

Transforming the life sciences marketing environment the way forward

The impact of paradigm shifts in the life sciences marketing function is evident The challenge remains to ensure these marketing functions remain dynamic and sensitive to market and consumer needs at all times

The shift is partially addressed by the availability of IT solutions such as the analytics collaboration and mobility modules discussed in this paper But to build out truly responsive environments using these IT-enabled technologies they must be mapped to organizational strategy and into the core competencies of the marketing function This will help life sciences organizations create therapies build awareness and enable effective uptake of therapies among patients

For more information on transforming your marketing and sales function into an intuitive environment Visit hpcomenterprisehealthcare

About the author

Bhuvaneashwar SubramanianBhuvaneashwar Subramanian is a program manager and subject-matter expert with the HP Life Sciences Market and Sales Intelligence Practice of Global AnalyticsmdashCorporate Strategy and Alliances Division He collaborates extensively on strategy formulation thought leadership and sales enablement initiatives for the life sciences industry

Subramanian contributes thought leadership on cloud computing in life sciences and industry studies on translational research He also provides his expertise to national and international life sciences organizations and is a member of the Open Innovation Task Force for Nanobiotechnology at the University of Waterloo in Canada

Bhuvaneashwar Subramanian holds a masterrsquos degree in molecular genetics from Banaras Hindu University in India He has an MBA in international business from Edith Cowan University in Australia

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

2

The prescription network the pharmaceutical industryrsquos collective customer

The marketing function may be the most challenge-ridden aspect of the life sciences sector (see Figure 1) The industry operates as a tightly regulated innovation environment It is characterized by a low turnover of therapeutic commercialization and strict government regulations on pricing and promotion strategies2

The life sciences marketing function often reaches critical decision points at various stages of therapeutic development and commercialization These points involve activities that are fundamental to creating and marketing a drug however the target customer environment has become increasingly complicated

For instance the social network PatientsLikeMe helps patients with a specific disease interact openly with similar people across the globe on a wide array of topics ranging from medication to quality of the physician Yet another mobile application helps patients define their symptoms and get information on medication doctors and the latest procedures associated with their disease

Empowering todayrsquos patient calls for pharmaceutical companies to focus their marketing on ldquoprescription networksrdquomdashecosystems of patients payers and physicians This requires them to center discussions around patient populations affected by specific diseases and adopt a consultative approach while engaging with the physician3

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

2 ldquoBiopharmaceutical marketing excellencerdquo Journal of Medical Marketing Roselund T et al 2004

3 ldquoThe network is the customer Setting the stage for fundamental change in pharmaceutical sales and marketingrdquo Journal of Medical Marketing Pesse M et al 2006

Figure 1 Life sciences marketing challenges

bull Building an interactive dialogue with the physician A critical challenge for marketing teams and the sales force is getting more face time with doctors to present a compelling case for prescription Sales representatives typically have less than one minute to deliver the pitch

bull Segmenting markets and catching up with payer-patient dynamics Population genetics has replaced demographics and medication efficacy as the linchpin of successful segmentation The emergence of personalized medicine and pay-for-performance models has challenged the industry to go beyond market sizing to disease population mapping to deliver personalized and preventive care

bull Engaging the patient as a key influencer The emergence of patient social networks and their influence on prescription compliance have called for pharmaceutical firms to leverage patients as advocates and opinion leaders and engage them as co-creators of therapeutic innovations

bull Building a suitable feedback mechanism Life sciences companies continue to battle with managing information feedback loops that could enable data exchange and integration between sales and marketing teams with the larger organization

3

Five game-changing behaviors are driving marketingrsquos transformation from a core physician-targeted activity into an intricate agenda of structured and unstructured interactions across the prescription network4 (see Figure 2)

Increasing impact of pay for performanceThe payer community in most nations is becoming wary of supporting pharmaceutical prescriptions and doling out payments for clinical consulting They are shifting focus to compensating only those therapies or prescription services that demonstrate positive health impact The availability of data is enabling healthcare payer communities to evaluate therapeutic efficacy prescription trends and patient adherence to therapy as barometers to vouching for a good therapeutic candidate for patient populations

Increasing influence of global disease burdenRecent studies by the WHO suggest that the diseases labeled ldquodiseases of affluencerdquomdashincluding diabetes cardiovascular disorders obesity cancer and osteoporosismdashare affecting individual life spans in developing nations Contrary to popular belief more than 70 of deaths from these chronic diseases occur in emerging economies not developed ones

The numbers suggest an important trend The new consumers of therapeutics for lifestyle and genetic diseases are located in India China Southeast Asia Africa and regions where generic therapies are easier to access than expensive blockbuster therapies One example is the price-point innovation by some Indian generic manufacturers for the cancer drug Nexavar that makes the drug available at a price thatrsquos lower than the iPad2

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

4 Pricewaterhouse Coopers (2009)rdquoPharma 2020 Marketing the future Which path will you takerdquo PricewaterhouseCoopers 2009

Figure 2 Behaviors altering the healthcare landscape

Healthcareecosystem

Focus onpreventive and

personalizedmedicine

Social communitiesof patients and

physicians

New businessmodels

Influence of global disease

burden

Pay for performance

4

Shift from prescriptive to preventive and personalized medicineUnderstanding the genetic basis of diseasemdashcoupled with more than 1500 targets post-sequencing the human genomemdashhas increased patientsrsquo awareness of their disease risk New-age biotechnology firms are spawning theragnostics and therapeutics in the personalized medicine space

Big pharma is lapping these up to help capitalize on the US$210 billion market for personalized medicine And investments have increased across preventive care and wearable patient monitoring systems that help patients and people with disease risk manage their health conditions more effectively

Patients like me you and everyone elseAn offshoot of the industry-changing behaviors listed previously is the growing influence of social media During the past decade more than 20 patient and physician communities have emerged in cyberspace A fair share of these communities is redefining physician and patient roles

Studies on social media activity show that patients in developed nations are relying more on medication advice from social networks and people with similar disease conditions Similarly physician communities are driving decisions toward adopting the most suitable treatment options

Compounding the positioning problem is the gradual increase in over-the-counter and online medication ordering This is becoming a norm across the United States and Europe and increasing the viability of a cyberspace revenue model

New business and technology commercialization modelsChanging paradigms have led life sciences companies to adopt new business models These models rely on crowd funding and crowd sourcing that enable internal teams and the payer physician and patient communities to help develop specialized therapeutics Certain business models in the cloud infrastructure are helping accelerate innovation from new users and clinical trials designed by patients

Changing objectives when influencing traditional marketing decision points

These behaviors have challenged the way life sciences marketing functions handle the decision points for therapy creation launch and promotion (see Figure 3)

bull Therapy creation This is largely the domain of pharmaceutical firmsrsquo RampD departments It is usually also the basis for devising the organizationrsquos marketing strategy Therapy creation typically comprises therapeutic pipeline design alliance formation and therapeutic segmentation And industry players unanimously agree the fundamental objectives of therapy creation must be

ndash To design theragnostics that address emerging personalized medicine trends

ndash To build synergy across potential innovation partners and marketing allies to enhance prospects of market leadership and penetration

ndash To develop long-term solutions for disease cure as opposed to disease management

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

5

bull Therapy launch When it comes to therapy launch marketing professionals in the life sciences industry have been no different from any other industry The charter to design market entry strategy and build opinion-leader networks has always remained a bone of contention But the complexity of stakeholder interactions in the prescription network has given way to two critical concerns while reaching out to global markets

ndash Building a global pricing mechanism that is unaffected by regional pricing models

ndash Influencing local community doctors to drive medication diffusion and compliance

bull Therapy promotion The final and most important phasemdashgetting the physician to recommend the drug and reaching out to the prescription networkmdashis opening up for transformation Life sciences companies are shying away from standard metrics of product sample use and designing their sales and communications agenda purely on financial returns Instead they are asking two fundamental questions

ndash How do we focus on building relationships between the sales force and physicians

ndash How do we better engage with patients

Together the concerns aired across the three critical decision points boil down to two fundamental actions

bull Understand the new ldquohealthcarerdquo market

bull Build sustainable relationships with the doctor and patient communities to lead the market

While these action items reflect the core of marketing the changing behaviors imply that consumers and physicians are becoming increasingly IT savvy They are collaborating to ensure accelerated cure and ultimately influencing the drugrsquos fate

Given the global scale it is important that a pharmaceutical companyrsquos marketing and sales functions shift to a collaborative ecosystemmdashone that engages the right mix of data analysis personal customer interaction and collaboration This will help ensure the sales rep gets more than 60 seconds to convince the provider of the therapyrsquos benefits

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

Figure 3 Critical marketing functions in the life sciences environment

Therapy creation

Core activities

Paradigmshifts

Therapy launch Therapy promotion

bull Therapy pipeline formationbull Innovation alliance formationbull Therapy positioning

bull Personalized medicinebull Synergies across innovation partners and marketing alliesbull Disease cure solutions

bull Global price mechanismbull Local doctors as key regional influencers

bull Sustained physician sales rep relationshipsbull Patient engagement

bull Global market entry timingbull Key opinion leader selection

bull Sales force managementbull Communication managementbull Patient compliance stimulation

6

Core modules for influencing the prescription network

The scale of activities in the typical life sciences companyrsquos marketing environment provides many opportunities for innovation through IT in terms of understanding data and communicating with potential customers This implies a transformation into holistic and interactive functions driven by three information-intensive modules built on a core IT foundation (see Figure 4)

bull The analytics module A data-driven component that uses all data formats to generate insights for therapeutic development and patient stratification

bull The mobility module An enabler of real-time engagement among the sales representative physician and patient communities and expertise within the organization

bull The collaboration module A cloud-based environment that facilitates interaction and drives innovation partnerships between the life sciences organization and stakeholder communities

The three modules would seamlessly integrate to create information that helps design channel and regional marketing activities They would also facilitate tracking of the stakeholder environment through IT-empowered medical representatives and marketing strategists in the life sciences organization But with typical life sciences IT investments 3 or less of the total revenue it is important to take a sequential approach to effectively integrate analytics- and mobility-driven solutions for greater returns5 (see Figure 5)

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

5 Pricewaterhouse Coopers (2009)rdquoPharma 2020 Marketing the future Which path will you takerdquo PricewaterhouseCoopers 2009

Figure 4 Innovation points in the life sciences sales and marketing environment

Innovation

Integratedmarketing

communication

Salesoptimization

Marketresearch

Marketsegmentation

andpositioning

bull Leverage disease- specific insight for personalized medicine

bull Increase points of collaboration and communication between stakeholders

bull Focus on value creation and relationship management

bull Build on insights to create disruptive segmentation for complex diseases across markets

7

1 Evaluate critical decision points to identify the data-driven and people-driven functionsLife sciences marketing practitioners would agree analytics solutions are more relevant across patient segmentation pricing and sales force planning activitiesmdashas opposed to activities that involve a high degree of human interaction This is largely because analytics works well only in avenues that offer ample opportunity for significant data generation

Pharmaceutical and life sciences organizations conventionally invest in complex analytics solution packages But the returns on these solutions often are not as expected A primary reason is the poor fit between the organizationrsquos core activities and analytics platform functionality

From a marketing perspective life sciences organizations should make an investment in analytics software that supports critical data-intensive activities for their particular environment Some organizations may need a robust analytics solution for sales pipeline analytics Others would need it for product planning

The key to successfully implementing an analytics solution for the life sciences marketing environment is this Clearly delineate the data-intensive components from the social-intensive components and invest only in the aspects that are repeated and irreplaceable data sources for insights

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

Figure 5 The transformed IT-enabled pharmaceutical sales and marketing enterprise

IT integratedpharmaceutical

marketing

Analyticsmodule

Collaborationmodule

Communicationmodule

Enable informationleverage to design channel

marketing activity

Facilitate tracking of patientmedicine consumption

behavior and track pharmaretail purchase

Facilitate online and on-site dialogue among

sales rep clinical andcompany SME

Communicate real-timeinformation to field sales

rep in real time

Generate real-timeinsight on market andpatient stratification

8

2 Choose the right kind of analytics module to maximize outcome of critical decision pointsIn managing decision points regarding pharmaceutical sales and marketing environments a common challenge is the inability to effectively manage huge data streams

It is important for life sciences firms to invest in analytics platforms that offer twin capabilities indexing and contextualizing data into meaningful information and handling data in various formatsmdashfrom structured data such as spreadsheets to unstructured data such as patient comments on social media

For instance conventional marketing decision-support platforms can be augmented with capabilities to analyze patient and clinician survey data speech and focus group patient interactions This will enable them to create structured insights on patient disease groups and facilitate improved reach of targeted therapeutics among those groups

3 Use mobility solutions to create interaction touch points for communicationThe life sciences sales representative has only 60 seconds to convince a doctor of the productrsquos merits This is largely due to the use of conventional modesmdashbrochures sales collateral product samplesmdashto communicate the benefits Transformative mobility solutionsmdashincluding custom applets to talk about the product and video capabilities integrated into the sales reprsquos iPhone or tabletmdashcan help them engage in interactive conversations with the physician

Real-time connectivity solutions coupled with applets to capture CRM data would enable marketing organizations to gain critical insight from various touch points

4 Integrate market and CRM applets on private cloud environments and open co-creation environmentsIn a prescription network the communication touch points across payer groups physicians and patient communities would generate a wealth of information Much of this information could help marketing teams design and optimize their therapeutic pipelines

There is also the larger perspective of addressing therapy-creation and therapy-launch challenges Life sciences companies must integrate internal software and CRM software with mobility solutions This will improve efficiencies and accuracy in addressing patient demands in the pay-for-performance environment

Another important outcome of integration in cloud environments is the ability to co-create therapeutics with core customers and influencers Cloud- based environments for collaboration enable marketing teams to reach out to physician communities en masse They can generate and optimize new product ideas and markets while accessing patient feedback on existing therapeutics

This collaboration also would help marketing organizations improve therapy diffusion by creating a sense of ldquoidea ownershiprdquo among participating stakeholders Plus the per-region cost of deploying sales force would be greatly reduced through the use of media such as real-time web interaction models and mobility solutions

In effect using IT to transform the marketing and sales environment in the life sciences organization adds up to four key action items

1 Engage with the payer provider and patient communities to improve therapeutic penetration across markets

2 Use cloud and mobility as primary media for engaging physicians

3 Drive patient compliance to medication by using patients as key opinion leaders

4 Build a collaborative internal ecosystem that facilitates the exchange of information and ideas between the sales and marketing functions and the larger organization

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

9

Transforming the life sciences marketing environment the way forward

The impact of paradigm shifts in the life sciences marketing function is evident The challenge remains to ensure these marketing functions remain dynamic and sensitive to market and consumer needs at all times

The shift is partially addressed by the availability of IT solutions such as the analytics collaboration and mobility modules discussed in this paper But to build out truly responsive environments using these IT-enabled technologies they must be mapped to organizational strategy and into the core competencies of the marketing function This will help life sciences organizations create therapies build awareness and enable effective uptake of therapies among patients

For more information on transforming your marketing and sales function into an intuitive environment Visit hpcomenterprisehealthcare

About the author

Bhuvaneashwar SubramanianBhuvaneashwar Subramanian is a program manager and subject-matter expert with the HP Life Sciences Market and Sales Intelligence Practice of Global AnalyticsmdashCorporate Strategy and Alliances Division He collaborates extensively on strategy formulation thought leadership and sales enablement initiatives for the life sciences industry

Subramanian contributes thought leadership on cloud computing in life sciences and industry studies on translational research He also provides his expertise to national and international life sciences organizations and is a member of the Open Innovation Task Force for Nanobiotechnology at the University of Waterloo in Canada

Bhuvaneashwar Subramanian holds a masterrsquos degree in molecular genetics from Banaras Hindu University in India He has an MBA in international business from Edith Cowan University in Australia

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

3

Five game-changing behaviors are driving marketingrsquos transformation from a core physician-targeted activity into an intricate agenda of structured and unstructured interactions across the prescription network4 (see Figure 2)

Increasing impact of pay for performanceThe payer community in most nations is becoming wary of supporting pharmaceutical prescriptions and doling out payments for clinical consulting They are shifting focus to compensating only those therapies or prescription services that demonstrate positive health impact The availability of data is enabling healthcare payer communities to evaluate therapeutic efficacy prescription trends and patient adherence to therapy as barometers to vouching for a good therapeutic candidate for patient populations

Increasing influence of global disease burdenRecent studies by the WHO suggest that the diseases labeled ldquodiseases of affluencerdquomdashincluding diabetes cardiovascular disorders obesity cancer and osteoporosismdashare affecting individual life spans in developing nations Contrary to popular belief more than 70 of deaths from these chronic diseases occur in emerging economies not developed ones

The numbers suggest an important trend The new consumers of therapeutics for lifestyle and genetic diseases are located in India China Southeast Asia Africa and regions where generic therapies are easier to access than expensive blockbuster therapies One example is the price-point innovation by some Indian generic manufacturers for the cancer drug Nexavar that makes the drug available at a price thatrsquos lower than the iPad2

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

4 Pricewaterhouse Coopers (2009)rdquoPharma 2020 Marketing the future Which path will you takerdquo PricewaterhouseCoopers 2009

Figure 2 Behaviors altering the healthcare landscape

Healthcareecosystem

Focus onpreventive and

personalizedmedicine

Social communitiesof patients and

physicians

New businessmodels

Influence of global disease

burden

Pay for performance

4

Shift from prescriptive to preventive and personalized medicineUnderstanding the genetic basis of diseasemdashcoupled with more than 1500 targets post-sequencing the human genomemdashhas increased patientsrsquo awareness of their disease risk New-age biotechnology firms are spawning theragnostics and therapeutics in the personalized medicine space

Big pharma is lapping these up to help capitalize on the US$210 billion market for personalized medicine And investments have increased across preventive care and wearable patient monitoring systems that help patients and people with disease risk manage their health conditions more effectively

Patients like me you and everyone elseAn offshoot of the industry-changing behaviors listed previously is the growing influence of social media During the past decade more than 20 patient and physician communities have emerged in cyberspace A fair share of these communities is redefining physician and patient roles

Studies on social media activity show that patients in developed nations are relying more on medication advice from social networks and people with similar disease conditions Similarly physician communities are driving decisions toward adopting the most suitable treatment options

Compounding the positioning problem is the gradual increase in over-the-counter and online medication ordering This is becoming a norm across the United States and Europe and increasing the viability of a cyberspace revenue model

New business and technology commercialization modelsChanging paradigms have led life sciences companies to adopt new business models These models rely on crowd funding and crowd sourcing that enable internal teams and the payer physician and patient communities to help develop specialized therapeutics Certain business models in the cloud infrastructure are helping accelerate innovation from new users and clinical trials designed by patients

Changing objectives when influencing traditional marketing decision points

These behaviors have challenged the way life sciences marketing functions handle the decision points for therapy creation launch and promotion (see Figure 3)

bull Therapy creation This is largely the domain of pharmaceutical firmsrsquo RampD departments It is usually also the basis for devising the organizationrsquos marketing strategy Therapy creation typically comprises therapeutic pipeline design alliance formation and therapeutic segmentation And industry players unanimously agree the fundamental objectives of therapy creation must be

ndash To design theragnostics that address emerging personalized medicine trends

ndash To build synergy across potential innovation partners and marketing allies to enhance prospects of market leadership and penetration

ndash To develop long-term solutions for disease cure as opposed to disease management

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

5

bull Therapy launch When it comes to therapy launch marketing professionals in the life sciences industry have been no different from any other industry The charter to design market entry strategy and build opinion-leader networks has always remained a bone of contention But the complexity of stakeholder interactions in the prescription network has given way to two critical concerns while reaching out to global markets

ndash Building a global pricing mechanism that is unaffected by regional pricing models

ndash Influencing local community doctors to drive medication diffusion and compliance

bull Therapy promotion The final and most important phasemdashgetting the physician to recommend the drug and reaching out to the prescription networkmdashis opening up for transformation Life sciences companies are shying away from standard metrics of product sample use and designing their sales and communications agenda purely on financial returns Instead they are asking two fundamental questions

ndash How do we focus on building relationships between the sales force and physicians

ndash How do we better engage with patients

Together the concerns aired across the three critical decision points boil down to two fundamental actions

bull Understand the new ldquohealthcarerdquo market

bull Build sustainable relationships with the doctor and patient communities to lead the market

While these action items reflect the core of marketing the changing behaviors imply that consumers and physicians are becoming increasingly IT savvy They are collaborating to ensure accelerated cure and ultimately influencing the drugrsquos fate

Given the global scale it is important that a pharmaceutical companyrsquos marketing and sales functions shift to a collaborative ecosystemmdashone that engages the right mix of data analysis personal customer interaction and collaboration This will help ensure the sales rep gets more than 60 seconds to convince the provider of the therapyrsquos benefits

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

Figure 3 Critical marketing functions in the life sciences environment

Therapy creation

Core activities

Paradigmshifts

Therapy launch Therapy promotion

bull Therapy pipeline formationbull Innovation alliance formationbull Therapy positioning

bull Personalized medicinebull Synergies across innovation partners and marketing alliesbull Disease cure solutions

bull Global price mechanismbull Local doctors as key regional influencers

bull Sustained physician sales rep relationshipsbull Patient engagement

bull Global market entry timingbull Key opinion leader selection

bull Sales force managementbull Communication managementbull Patient compliance stimulation

6

Core modules for influencing the prescription network

The scale of activities in the typical life sciences companyrsquos marketing environment provides many opportunities for innovation through IT in terms of understanding data and communicating with potential customers This implies a transformation into holistic and interactive functions driven by three information-intensive modules built on a core IT foundation (see Figure 4)

bull The analytics module A data-driven component that uses all data formats to generate insights for therapeutic development and patient stratification

bull The mobility module An enabler of real-time engagement among the sales representative physician and patient communities and expertise within the organization

bull The collaboration module A cloud-based environment that facilitates interaction and drives innovation partnerships between the life sciences organization and stakeholder communities

The three modules would seamlessly integrate to create information that helps design channel and regional marketing activities They would also facilitate tracking of the stakeholder environment through IT-empowered medical representatives and marketing strategists in the life sciences organization But with typical life sciences IT investments 3 or less of the total revenue it is important to take a sequential approach to effectively integrate analytics- and mobility-driven solutions for greater returns5 (see Figure 5)

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

5 Pricewaterhouse Coopers (2009)rdquoPharma 2020 Marketing the future Which path will you takerdquo PricewaterhouseCoopers 2009

Figure 4 Innovation points in the life sciences sales and marketing environment

Innovation

Integratedmarketing

communication

Salesoptimization

Marketresearch

Marketsegmentation

andpositioning

bull Leverage disease- specific insight for personalized medicine

bull Increase points of collaboration and communication between stakeholders

bull Focus on value creation and relationship management

bull Build on insights to create disruptive segmentation for complex diseases across markets

7

1 Evaluate critical decision points to identify the data-driven and people-driven functionsLife sciences marketing practitioners would agree analytics solutions are more relevant across patient segmentation pricing and sales force planning activitiesmdashas opposed to activities that involve a high degree of human interaction This is largely because analytics works well only in avenues that offer ample opportunity for significant data generation

Pharmaceutical and life sciences organizations conventionally invest in complex analytics solution packages But the returns on these solutions often are not as expected A primary reason is the poor fit between the organizationrsquos core activities and analytics platform functionality

From a marketing perspective life sciences organizations should make an investment in analytics software that supports critical data-intensive activities for their particular environment Some organizations may need a robust analytics solution for sales pipeline analytics Others would need it for product planning

The key to successfully implementing an analytics solution for the life sciences marketing environment is this Clearly delineate the data-intensive components from the social-intensive components and invest only in the aspects that are repeated and irreplaceable data sources for insights

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

Figure 5 The transformed IT-enabled pharmaceutical sales and marketing enterprise

IT integratedpharmaceutical

marketing

Analyticsmodule

Collaborationmodule

Communicationmodule

Enable informationleverage to design channel

marketing activity

Facilitate tracking of patientmedicine consumption

behavior and track pharmaretail purchase

Facilitate online and on-site dialogue among

sales rep clinical andcompany SME

Communicate real-timeinformation to field sales

rep in real time

Generate real-timeinsight on market andpatient stratification

8

2 Choose the right kind of analytics module to maximize outcome of critical decision pointsIn managing decision points regarding pharmaceutical sales and marketing environments a common challenge is the inability to effectively manage huge data streams

It is important for life sciences firms to invest in analytics platforms that offer twin capabilities indexing and contextualizing data into meaningful information and handling data in various formatsmdashfrom structured data such as spreadsheets to unstructured data such as patient comments on social media

For instance conventional marketing decision-support platforms can be augmented with capabilities to analyze patient and clinician survey data speech and focus group patient interactions This will enable them to create structured insights on patient disease groups and facilitate improved reach of targeted therapeutics among those groups

3 Use mobility solutions to create interaction touch points for communicationThe life sciences sales representative has only 60 seconds to convince a doctor of the productrsquos merits This is largely due to the use of conventional modesmdashbrochures sales collateral product samplesmdashto communicate the benefits Transformative mobility solutionsmdashincluding custom applets to talk about the product and video capabilities integrated into the sales reprsquos iPhone or tabletmdashcan help them engage in interactive conversations with the physician

Real-time connectivity solutions coupled with applets to capture CRM data would enable marketing organizations to gain critical insight from various touch points

4 Integrate market and CRM applets on private cloud environments and open co-creation environmentsIn a prescription network the communication touch points across payer groups physicians and patient communities would generate a wealth of information Much of this information could help marketing teams design and optimize their therapeutic pipelines

There is also the larger perspective of addressing therapy-creation and therapy-launch challenges Life sciences companies must integrate internal software and CRM software with mobility solutions This will improve efficiencies and accuracy in addressing patient demands in the pay-for-performance environment

Another important outcome of integration in cloud environments is the ability to co-create therapeutics with core customers and influencers Cloud- based environments for collaboration enable marketing teams to reach out to physician communities en masse They can generate and optimize new product ideas and markets while accessing patient feedback on existing therapeutics

This collaboration also would help marketing organizations improve therapy diffusion by creating a sense of ldquoidea ownershiprdquo among participating stakeholders Plus the per-region cost of deploying sales force would be greatly reduced through the use of media such as real-time web interaction models and mobility solutions

In effect using IT to transform the marketing and sales environment in the life sciences organization adds up to four key action items

1 Engage with the payer provider and patient communities to improve therapeutic penetration across markets

2 Use cloud and mobility as primary media for engaging physicians

3 Drive patient compliance to medication by using patients as key opinion leaders

4 Build a collaborative internal ecosystem that facilitates the exchange of information and ideas between the sales and marketing functions and the larger organization

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

9

Transforming the life sciences marketing environment the way forward

The impact of paradigm shifts in the life sciences marketing function is evident The challenge remains to ensure these marketing functions remain dynamic and sensitive to market and consumer needs at all times

The shift is partially addressed by the availability of IT solutions such as the analytics collaboration and mobility modules discussed in this paper But to build out truly responsive environments using these IT-enabled technologies they must be mapped to organizational strategy and into the core competencies of the marketing function This will help life sciences organizations create therapies build awareness and enable effective uptake of therapies among patients

For more information on transforming your marketing and sales function into an intuitive environment Visit hpcomenterprisehealthcare

About the author

Bhuvaneashwar SubramanianBhuvaneashwar Subramanian is a program manager and subject-matter expert with the HP Life Sciences Market and Sales Intelligence Practice of Global AnalyticsmdashCorporate Strategy and Alliances Division He collaborates extensively on strategy formulation thought leadership and sales enablement initiatives for the life sciences industry

Subramanian contributes thought leadership on cloud computing in life sciences and industry studies on translational research He also provides his expertise to national and international life sciences organizations and is a member of the Open Innovation Task Force for Nanobiotechnology at the University of Waterloo in Canada

Bhuvaneashwar Subramanian holds a masterrsquos degree in molecular genetics from Banaras Hindu University in India He has an MBA in international business from Edith Cowan University in Australia

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

4

Shift from prescriptive to preventive and personalized medicineUnderstanding the genetic basis of diseasemdashcoupled with more than 1500 targets post-sequencing the human genomemdashhas increased patientsrsquo awareness of their disease risk New-age biotechnology firms are spawning theragnostics and therapeutics in the personalized medicine space

Big pharma is lapping these up to help capitalize on the US$210 billion market for personalized medicine And investments have increased across preventive care and wearable patient monitoring systems that help patients and people with disease risk manage their health conditions more effectively

Patients like me you and everyone elseAn offshoot of the industry-changing behaviors listed previously is the growing influence of social media During the past decade more than 20 patient and physician communities have emerged in cyberspace A fair share of these communities is redefining physician and patient roles

Studies on social media activity show that patients in developed nations are relying more on medication advice from social networks and people with similar disease conditions Similarly physician communities are driving decisions toward adopting the most suitable treatment options

Compounding the positioning problem is the gradual increase in over-the-counter and online medication ordering This is becoming a norm across the United States and Europe and increasing the viability of a cyberspace revenue model

New business and technology commercialization modelsChanging paradigms have led life sciences companies to adopt new business models These models rely on crowd funding and crowd sourcing that enable internal teams and the payer physician and patient communities to help develop specialized therapeutics Certain business models in the cloud infrastructure are helping accelerate innovation from new users and clinical trials designed by patients

Changing objectives when influencing traditional marketing decision points

These behaviors have challenged the way life sciences marketing functions handle the decision points for therapy creation launch and promotion (see Figure 3)

bull Therapy creation This is largely the domain of pharmaceutical firmsrsquo RampD departments It is usually also the basis for devising the organizationrsquos marketing strategy Therapy creation typically comprises therapeutic pipeline design alliance formation and therapeutic segmentation And industry players unanimously agree the fundamental objectives of therapy creation must be

ndash To design theragnostics that address emerging personalized medicine trends

ndash To build synergy across potential innovation partners and marketing allies to enhance prospects of market leadership and penetration

ndash To develop long-term solutions for disease cure as opposed to disease management

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

5

bull Therapy launch When it comes to therapy launch marketing professionals in the life sciences industry have been no different from any other industry The charter to design market entry strategy and build opinion-leader networks has always remained a bone of contention But the complexity of stakeholder interactions in the prescription network has given way to two critical concerns while reaching out to global markets

ndash Building a global pricing mechanism that is unaffected by regional pricing models

ndash Influencing local community doctors to drive medication diffusion and compliance

bull Therapy promotion The final and most important phasemdashgetting the physician to recommend the drug and reaching out to the prescription networkmdashis opening up for transformation Life sciences companies are shying away from standard metrics of product sample use and designing their sales and communications agenda purely on financial returns Instead they are asking two fundamental questions

ndash How do we focus on building relationships between the sales force and physicians

ndash How do we better engage with patients

Together the concerns aired across the three critical decision points boil down to two fundamental actions

bull Understand the new ldquohealthcarerdquo market

bull Build sustainable relationships with the doctor and patient communities to lead the market

While these action items reflect the core of marketing the changing behaviors imply that consumers and physicians are becoming increasingly IT savvy They are collaborating to ensure accelerated cure and ultimately influencing the drugrsquos fate

Given the global scale it is important that a pharmaceutical companyrsquos marketing and sales functions shift to a collaborative ecosystemmdashone that engages the right mix of data analysis personal customer interaction and collaboration This will help ensure the sales rep gets more than 60 seconds to convince the provider of the therapyrsquos benefits

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

Figure 3 Critical marketing functions in the life sciences environment

Therapy creation

Core activities

Paradigmshifts

Therapy launch Therapy promotion

bull Therapy pipeline formationbull Innovation alliance formationbull Therapy positioning

bull Personalized medicinebull Synergies across innovation partners and marketing alliesbull Disease cure solutions

bull Global price mechanismbull Local doctors as key regional influencers

bull Sustained physician sales rep relationshipsbull Patient engagement

bull Global market entry timingbull Key opinion leader selection

bull Sales force managementbull Communication managementbull Patient compliance stimulation

6

Core modules for influencing the prescription network

The scale of activities in the typical life sciences companyrsquos marketing environment provides many opportunities for innovation through IT in terms of understanding data and communicating with potential customers This implies a transformation into holistic and interactive functions driven by three information-intensive modules built on a core IT foundation (see Figure 4)

bull The analytics module A data-driven component that uses all data formats to generate insights for therapeutic development and patient stratification

bull The mobility module An enabler of real-time engagement among the sales representative physician and patient communities and expertise within the organization

bull The collaboration module A cloud-based environment that facilitates interaction and drives innovation partnerships between the life sciences organization and stakeholder communities

The three modules would seamlessly integrate to create information that helps design channel and regional marketing activities They would also facilitate tracking of the stakeholder environment through IT-empowered medical representatives and marketing strategists in the life sciences organization But with typical life sciences IT investments 3 or less of the total revenue it is important to take a sequential approach to effectively integrate analytics- and mobility-driven solutions for greater returns5 (see Figure 5)

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

5 Pricewaterhouse Coopers (2009)rdquoPharma 2020 Marketing the future Which path will you takerdquo PricewaterhouseCoopers 2009

Figure 4 Innovation points in the life sciences sales and marketing environment

Innovation

Integratedmarketing

communication

Salesoptimization

Marketresearch

Marketsegmentation

andpositioning

bull Leverage disease- specific insight for personalized medicine

bull Increase points of collaboration and communication between stakeholders

bull Focus on value creation and relationship management

bull Build on insights to create disruptive segmentation for complex diseases across markets

7

1 Evaluate critical decision points to identify the data-driven and people-driven functionsLife sciences marketing practitioners would agree analytics solutions are more relevant across patient segmentation pricing and sales force planning activitiesmdashas opposed to activities that involve a high degree of human interaction This is largely because analytics works well only in avenues that offer ample opportunity for significant data generation

Pharmaceutical and life sciences organizations conventionally invest in complex analytics solution packages But the returns on these solutions often are not as expected A primary reason is the poor fit between the organizationrsquos core activities and analytics platform functionality

From a marketing perspective life sciences organizations should make an investment in analytics software that supports critical data-intensive activities for their particular environment Some organizations may need a robust analytics solution for sales pipeline analytics Others would need it for product planning

The key to successfully implementing an analytics solution for the life sciences marketing environment is this Clearly delineate the data-intensive components from the social-intensive components and invest only in the aspects that are repeated and irreplaceable data sources for insights

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

Figure 5 The transformed IT-enabled pharmaceutical sales and marketing enterprise

IT integratedpharmaceutical

marketing

Analyticsmodule

Collaborationmodule

Communicationmodule

Enable informationleverage to design channel

marketing activity

Facilitate tracking of patientmedicine consumption

behavior and track pharmaretail purchase

Facilitate online and on-site dialogue among

sales rep clinical andcompany SME

Communicate real-timeinformation to field sales

rep in real time

Generate real-timeinsight on market andpatient stratification

8

2 Choose the right kind of analytics module to maximize outcome of critical decision pointsIn managing decision points regarding pharmaceutical sales and marketing environments a common challenge is the inability to effectively manage huge data streams

It is important for life sciences firms to invest in analytics platforms that offer twin capabilities indexing and contextualizing data into meaningful information and handling data in various formatsmdashfrom structured data such as spreadsheets to unstructured data such as patient comments on social media

For instance conventional marketing decision-support platforms can be augmented with capabilities to analyze patient and clinician survey data speech and focus group patient interactions This will enable them to create structured insights on patient disease groups and facilitate improved reach of targeted therapeutics among those groups

3 Use mobility solutions to create interaction touch points for communicationThe life sciences sales representative has only 60 seconds to convince a doctor of the productrsquos merits This is largely due to the use of conventional modesmdashbrochures sales collateral product samplesmdashto communicate the benefits Transformative mobility solutionsmdashincluding custom applets to talk about the product and video capabilities integrated into the sales reprsquos iPhone or tabletmdashcan help them engage in interactive conversations with the physician

Real-time connectivity solutions coupled with applets to capture CRM data would enable marketing organizations to gain critical insight from various touch points

4 Integrate market and CRM applets on private cloud environments and open co-creation environmentsIn a prescription network the communication touch points across payer groups physicians and patient communities would generate a wealth of information Much of this information could help marketing teams design and optimize their therapeutic pipelines

There is also the larger perspective of addressing therapy-creation and therapy-launch challenges Life sciences companies must integrate internal software and CRM software with mobility solutions This will improve efficiencies and accuracy in addressing patient demands in the pay-for-performance environment

Another important outcome of integration in cloud environments is the ability to co-create therapeutics with core customers and influencers Cloud- based environments for collaboration enable marketing teams to reach out to physician communities en masse They can generate and optimize new product ideas and markets while accessing patient feedback on existing therapeutics

This collaboration also would help marketing organizations improve therapy diffusion by creating a sense of ldquoidea ownershiprdquo among participating stakeholders Plus the per-region cost of deploying sales force would be greatly reduced through the use of media such as real-time web interaction models and mobility solutions

In effect using IT to transform the marketing and sales environment in the life sciences organization adds up to four key action items

1 Engage with the payer provider and patient communities to improve therapeutic penetration across markets

2 Use cloud and mobility as primary media for engaging physicians

3 Drive patient compliance to medication by using patients as key opinion leaders

4 Build a collaborative internal ecosystem that facilitates the exchange of information and ideas between the sales and marketing functions and the larger organization

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

9

Transforming the life sciences marketing environment the way forward

The impact of paradigm shifts in the life sciences marketing function is evident The challenge remains to ensure these marketing functions remain dynamic and sensitive to market and consumer needs at all times

The shift is partially addressed by the availability of IT solutions such as the analytics collaboration and mobility modules discussed in this paper But to build out truly responsive environments using these IT-enabled technologies they must be mapped to organizational strategy and into the core competencies of the marketing function This will help life sciences organizations create therapies build awareness and enable effective uptake of therapies among patients

For more information on transforming your marketing and sales function into an intuitive environment Visit hpcomenterprisehealthcare

About the author

Bhuvaneashwar SubramanianBhuvaneashwar Subramanian is a program manager and subject-matter expert with the HP Life Sciences Market and Sales Intelligence Practice of Global AnalyticsmdashCorporate Strategy and Alliances Division He collaborates extensively on strategy formulation thought leadership and sales enablement initiatives for the life sciences industry

Subramanian contributes thought leadership on cloud computing in life sciences and industry studies on translational research He also provides his expertise to national and international life sciences organizations and is a member of the Open Innovation Task Force for Nanobiotechnology at the University of Waterloo in Canada

Bhuvaneashwar Subramanian holds a masterrsquos degree in molecular genetics from Banaras Hindu University in India He has an MBA in international business from Edith Cowan University in Australia

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

5

bull Therapy launch When it comes to therapy launch marketing professionals in the life sciences industry have been no different from any other industry The charter to design market entry strategy and build opinion-leader networks has always remained a bone of contention But the complexity of stakeholder interactions in the prescription network has given way to two critical concerns while reaching out to global markets

ndash Building a global pricing mechanism that is unaffected by regional pricing models

ndash Influencing local community doctors to drive medication diffusion and compliance

bull Therapy promotion The final and most important phasemdashgetting the physician to recommend the drug and reaching out to the prescription networkmdashis opening up for transformation Life sciences companies are shying away from standard metrics of product sample use and designing their sales and communications agenda purely on financial returns Instead they are asking two fundamental questions

ndash How do we focus on building relationships between the sales force and physicians

ndash How do we better engage with patients

Together the concerns aired across the three critical decision points boil down to two fundamental actions

bull Understand the new ldquohealthcarerdquo market

bull Build sustainable relationships with the doctor and patient communities to lead the market

While these action items reflect the core of marketing the changing behaviors imply that consumers and physicians are becoming increasingly IT savvy They are collaborating to ensure accelerated cure and ultimately influencing the drugrsquos fate

Given the global scale it is important that a pharmaceutical companyrsquos marketing and sales functions shift to a collaborative ecosystemmdashone that engages the right mix of data analysis personal customer interaction and collaboration This will help ensure the sales rep gets more than 60 seconds to convince the provider of the therapyrsquos benefits

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

Figure 3 Critical marketing functions in the life sciences environment

Therapy creation

Core activities

Paradigmshifts

Therapy launch Therapy promotion

bull Therapy pipeline formationbull Innovation alliance formationbull Therapy positioning

bull Personalized medicinebull Synergies across innovation partners and marketing alliesbull Disease cure solutions

bull Global price mechanismbull Local doctors as key regional influencers

bull Sustained physician sales rep relationshipsbull Patient engagement

bull Global market entry timingbull Key opinion leader selection

bull Sales force managementbull Communication managementbull Patient compliance stimulation

6

Core modules for influencing the prescription network

The scale of activities in the typical life sciences companyrsquos marketing environment provides many opportunities for innovation through IT in terms of understanding data and communicating with potential customers This implies a transformation into holistic and interactive functions driven by three information-intensive modules built on a core IT foundation (see Figure 4)

bull The analytics module A data-driven component that uses all data formats to generate insights for therapeutic development and patient stratification

bull The mobility module An enabler of real-time engagement among the sales representative physician and patient communities and expertise within the organization

bull The collaboration module A cloud-based environment that facilitates interaction and drives innovation partnerships between the life sciences organization and stakeholder communities

The three modules would seamlessly integrate to create information that helps design channel and regional marketing activities They would also facilitate tracking of the stakeholder environment through IT-empowered medical representatives and marketing strategists in the life sciences organization But with typical life sciences IT investments 3 or less of the total revenue it is important to take a sequential approach to effectively integrate analytics- and mobility-driven solutions for greater returns5 (see Figure 5)

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

5 Pricewaterhouse Coopers (2009)rdquoPharma 2020 Marketing the future Which path will you takerdquo PricewaterhouseCoopers 2009

Figure 4 Innovation points in the life sciences sales and marketing environment

Innovation

Integratedmarketing

communication

Salesoptimization

Marketresearch

Marketsegmentation

andpositioning

bull Leverage disease- specific insight for personalized medicine

bull Increase points of collaboration and communication between stakeholders

bull Focus on value creation and relationship management

bull Build on insights to create disruptive segmentation for complex diseases across markets

7

1 Evaluate critical decision points to identify the data-driven and people-driven functionsLife sciences marketing practitioners would agree analytics solutions are more relevant across patient segmentation pricing and sales force planning activitiesmdashas opposed to activities that involve a high degree of human interaction This is largely because analytics works well only in avenues that offer ample opportunity for significant data generation

Pharmaceutical and life sciences organizations conventionally invest in complex analytics solution packages But the returns on these solutions often are not as expected A primary reason is the poor fit between the organizationrsquos core activities and analytics platform functionality

From a marketing perspective life sciences organizations should make an investment in analytics software that supports critical data-intensive activities for their particular environment Some organizations may need a robust analytics solution for sales pipeline analytics Others would need it for product planning

The key to successfully implementing an analytics solution for the life sciences marketing environment is this Clearly delineate the data-intensive components from the social-intensive components and invest only in the aspects that are repeated and irreplaceable data sources for insights

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

Figure 5 The transformed IT-enabled pharmaceutical sales and marketing enterprise

IT integratedpharmaceutical

marketing

Analyticsmodule

Collaborationmodule

Communicationmodule

Enable informationleverage to design channel

marketing activity

Facilitate tracking of patientmedicine consumption

behavior and track pharmaretail purchase

Facilitate online and on-site dialogue among

sales rep clinical andcompany SME

Communicate real-timeinformation to field sales

rep in real time

Generate real-timeinsight on market andpatient stratification

8

2 Choose the right kind of analytics module to maximize outcome of critical decision pointsIn managing decision points regarding pharmaceutical sales and marketing environments a common challenge is the inability to effectively manage huge data streams

It is important for life sciences firms to invest in analytics platforms that offer twin capabilities indexing and contextualizing data into meaningful information and handling data in various formatsmdashfrom structured data such as spreadsheets to unstructured data such as patient comments on social media

For instance conventional marketing decision-support platforms can be augmented with capabilities to analyze patient and clinician survey data speech and focus group patient interactions This will enable them to create structured insights on patient disease groups and facilitate improved reach of targeted therapeutics among those groups

3 Use mobility solutions to create interaction touch points for communicationThe life sciences sales representative has only 60 seconds to convince a doctor of the productrsquos merits This is largely due to the use of conventional modesmdashbrochures sales collateral product samplesmdashto communicate the benefits Transformative mobility solutionsmdashincluding custom applets to talk about the product and video capabilities integrated into the sales reprsquos iPhone or tabletmdashcan help them engage in interactive conversations with the physician

Real-time connectivity solutions coupled with applets to capture CRM data would enable marketing organizations to gain critical insight from various touch points

4 Integrate market and CRM applets on private cloud environments and open co-creation environmentsIn a prescription network the communication touch points across payer groups physicians and patient communities would generate a wealth of information Much of this information could help marketing teams design and optimize their therapeutic pipelines

There is also the larger perspective of addressing therapy-creation and therapy-launch challenges Life sciences companies must integrate internal software and CRM software with mobility solutions This will improve efficiencies and accuracy in addressing patient demands in the pay-for-performance environment

Another important outcome of integration in cloud environments is the ability to co-create therapeutics with core customers and influencers Cloud- based environments for collaboration enable marketing teams to reach out to physician communities en masse They can generate and optimize new product ideas and markets while accessing patient feedback on existing therapeutics

This collaboration also would help marketing organizations improve therapy diffusion by creating a sense of ldquoidea ownershiprdquo among participating stakeholders Plus the per-region cost of deploying sales force would be greatly reduced through the use of media such as real-time web interaction models and mobility solutions

In effect using IT to transform the marketing and sales environment in the life sciences organization adds up to four key action items

1 Engage with the payer provider and patient communities to improve therapeutic penetration across markets

2 Use cloud and mobility as primary media for engaging physicians

3 Drive patient compliance to medication by using patients as key opinion leaders

4 Build a collaborative internal ecosystem that facilitates the exchange of information and ideas between the sales and marketing functions and the larger organization

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

9

Transforming the life sciences marketing environment the way forward

The impact of paradigm shifts in the life sciences marketing function is evident The challenge remains to ensure these marketing functions remain dynamic and sensitive to market and consumer needs at all times

The shift is partially addressed by the availability of IT solutions such as the analytics collaboration and mobility modules discussed in this paper But to build out truly responsive environments using these IT-enabled technologies they must be mapped to organizational strategy and into the core competencies of the marketing function This will help life sciences organizations create therapies build awareness and enable effective uptake of therapies among patients

For more information on transforming your marketing and sales function into an intuitive environment Visit hpcomenterprisehealthcare

About the author

Bhuvaneashwar SubramanianBhuvaneashwar Subramanian is a program manager and subject-matter expert with the HP Life Sciences Market and Sales Intelligence Practice of Global AnalyticsmdashCorporate Strategy and Alliances Division He collaborates extensively on strategy formulation thought leadership and sales enablement initiatives for the life sciences industry

Subramanian contributes thought leadership on cloud computing in life sciences and industry studies on translational research He also provides his expertise to national and international life sciences organizations and is a member of the Open Innovation Task Force for Nanobiotechnology at the University of Waterloo in Canada

Bhuvaneashwar Subramanian holds a masterrsquos degree in molecular genetics from Banaras Hindu University in India He has an MBA in international business from Edith Cowan University in Australia

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

6

Core modules for influencing the prescription network

The scale of activities in the typical life sciences companyrsquos marketing environment provides many opportunities for innovation through IT in terms of understanding data and communicating with potential customers This implies a transformation into holistic and interactive functions driven by three information-intensive modules built on a core IT foundation (see Figure 4)

bull The analytics module A data-driven component that uses all data formats to generate insights for therapeutic development and patient stratification

bull The mobility module An enabler of real-time engagement among the sales representative physician and patient communities and expertise within the organization

bull The collaboration module A cloud-based environment that facilitates interaction and drives innovation partnerships between the life sciences organization and stakeholder communities

The three modules would seamlessly integrate to create information that helps design channel and regional marketing activities They would also facilitate tracking of the stakeholder environment through IT-empowered medical representatives and marketing strategists in the life sciences organization But with typical life sciences IT investments 3 or less of the total revenue it is important to take a sequential approach to effectively integrate analytics- and mobility-driven solutions for greater returns5 (see Figure 5)

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

5 Pricewaterhouse Coopers (2009)rdquoPharma 2020 Marketing the future Which path will you takerdquo PricewaterhouseCoopers 2009

Figure 4 Innovation points in the life sciences sales and marketing environment

Innovation

Integratedmarketing

communication

Salesoptimization

Marketresearch

Marketsegmentation

andpositioning

bull Leverage disease- specific insight for personalized medicine

bull Increase points of collaboration and communication between stakeholders

bull Focus on value creation and relationship management

bull Build on insights to create disruptive segmentation for complex diseases across markets

7

1 Evaluate critical decision points to identify the data-driven and people-driven functionsLife sciences marketing practitioners would agree analytics solutions are more relevant across patient segmentation pricing and sales force planning activitiesmdashas opposed to activities that involve a high degree of human interaction This is largely because analytics works well only in avenues that offer ample opportunity for significant data generation

Pharmaceutical and life sciences organizations conventionally invest in complex analytics solution packages But the returns on these solutions often are not as expected A primary reason is the poor fit between the organizationrsquos core activities and analytics platform functionality

From a marketing perspective life sciences organizations should make an investment in analytics software that supports critical data-intensive activities for their particular environment Some organizations may need a robust analytics solution for sales pipeline analytics Others would need it for product planning

The key to successfully implementing an analytics solution for the life sciences marketing environment is this Clearly delineate the data-intensive components from the social-intensive components and invest only in the aspects that are repeated and irreplaceable data sources for insights

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

Figure 5 The transformed IT-enabled pharmaceutical sales and marketing enterprise

IT integratedpharmaceutical

marketing

Analyticsmodule

Collaborationmodule

Communicationmodule

Enable informationleverage to design channel

marketing activity

Facilitate tracking of patientmedicine consumption

behavior and track pharmaretail purchase

Facilitate online and on-site dialogue among

sales rep clinical andcompany SME

Communicate real-timeinformation to field sales

rep in real time

Generate real-timeinsight on market andpatient stratification

8

2 Choose the right kind of analytics module to maximize outcome of critical decision pointsIn managing decision points regarding pharmaceutical sales and marketing environments a common challenge is the inability to effectively manage huge data streams

It is important for life sciences firms to invest in analytics platforms that offer twin capabilities indexing and contextualizing data into meaningful information and handling data in various formatsmdashfrom structured data such as spreadsheets to unstructured data such as patient comments on social media

For instance conventional marketing decision-support platforms can be augmented with capabilities to analyze patient and clinician survey data speech and focus group patient interactions This will enable them to create structured insights on patient disease groups and facilitate improved reach of targeted therapeutics among those groups

3 Use mobility solutions to create interaction touch points for communicationThe life sciences sales representative has only 60 seconds to convince a doctor of the productrsquos merits This is largely due to the use of conventional modesmdashbrochures sales collateral product samplesmdashto communicate the benefits Transformative mobility solutionsmdashincluding custom applets to talk about the product and video capabilities integrated into the sales reprsquos iPhone or tabletmdashcan help them engage in interactive conversations with the physician

Real-time connectivity solutions coupled with applets to capture CRM data would enable marketing organizations to gain critical insight from various touch points

4 Integrate market and CRM applets on private cloud environments and open co-creation environmentsIn a prescription network the communication touch points across payer groups physicians and patient communities would generate a wealth of information Much of this information could help marketing teams design and optimize their therapeutic pipelines

There is also the larger perspective of addressing therapy-creation and therapy-launch challenges Life sciences companies must integrate internal software and CRM software with mobility solutions This will improve efficiencies and accuracy in addressing patient demands in the pay-for-performance environment

Another important outcome of integration in cloud environments is the ability to co-create therapeutics with core customers and influencers Cloud- based environments for collaboration enable marketing teams to reach out to physician communities en masse They can generate and optimize new product ideas and markets while accessing patient feedback on existing therapeutics

This collaboration also would help marketing organizations improve therapy diffusion by creating a sense of ldquoidea ownershiprdquo among participating stakeholders Plus the per-region cost of deploying sales force would be greatly reduced through the use of media such as real-time web interaction models and mobility solutions

In effect using IT to transform the marketing and sales environment in the life sciences organization adds up to four key action items

1 Engage with the payer provider and patient communities to improve therapeutic penetration across markets

2 Use cloud and mobility as primary media for engaging physicians

3 Drive patient compliance to medication by using patients as key opinion leaders

4 Build a collaborative internal ecosystem that facilitates the exchange of information and ideas between the sales and marketing functions and the larger organization

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

9

Transforming the life sciences marketing environment the way forward

The impact of paradigm shifts in the life sciences marketing function is evident The challenge remains to ensure these marketing functions remain dynamic and sensitive to market and consumer needs at all times

The shift is partially addressed by the availability of IT solutions such as the analytics collaboration and mobility modules discussed in this paper But to build out truly responsive environments using these IT-enabled technologies they must be mapped to organizational strategy and into the core competencies of the marketing function This will help life sciences organizations create therapies build awareness and enable effective uptake of therapies among patients

For more information on transforming your marketing and sales function into an intuitive environment Visit hpcomenterprisehealthcare

About the author

Bhuvaneashwar SubramanianBhuvaneashwar Subramanian is a program manager and subject-matter expert with the HP Life Sciences Market and Sales Intelligence Practice of Global AnalyticsmdashCorporate Strategy and Alliances Division He collaborates extensively on strategy formulation thought leadership and sales enablement initiatives for the life sciences industry

Subramanian contributes thought leadership on cloud computing in life sciences and industry studies on translational research He also provides his expertise to national and international life sciences organizations and is a member of the Open Innovation Task Force for Nanobiotechnology at the University of Waterloo in Canada

Bhuvaneashwar Subramanian holds a masterrsquos degree in molecular genetics from Banaras Hindu University in India He has an MBA in international business from Edith Cowan University in Australia

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

7

1 Evaluate critical decision points to identify the data-driven and people-driven functionsLife sciences marketing practitioners would agree analytics solutions are more relevant across patient segmentation pricing and sales force planning activitiesmdashas opposed to activities that involve a high degree of human interaction This is largely because analytics works well only in avenues that offer ample opportunity for significant data generation

Pharmaceutical and life sciences organizations conventionally invest in complex analytics solution packages But the returns on these solutions often are not as expected A primary reason is the poor fit between the organizationrsquos core activities and analytics platform functionality

From a marketing perspective life sciences organizations should make an investment in analytics software that supports critical data-intensive activities for their particular environment Some organizations may need a robust analytics solution for sales pipeline analytics Others would need it for product planning

The key to successfully implementing an analytics solution for the life sciences marketing environment is this Clearly delineate the data-intensive components from the social-intensive components and invest only in the aspects that are repeated and irreplaceable data sources for insights

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

Figure 5 The transformed IT-enabled pharmaceutical sales and marketing enterprise

IT integratedpharmaceutical

marketing

Analyticsmodule

Collaborationmodule

Communicationmodule

Enable informationleverage to design channel

marketing activity

Facilitate tracking of patientmedicine consumption

behavior and track pharmaretail purchase

Facilitate online and on-site dialogue among

sales rep clinical andcompany SME

Communicate real-timeinformation to field sales

rep in real time

Generate real-timeinsight on market andpatient stratification

8

2 Choose the right kind of analytics module to maximize outcome of critical decision pointsIn managing decision points regarding pharmaceutical sales and marketing environments a common challenge is the inability to effectively manage huge data streams

It is important for life sciences firms to invest in analytics platforms that offer twin capabilities indexing and contextualizing data into meaningful information and handling data in various formatsmdashfrom structured data such as spreadsheets to unstructured data such as patient comments on social media

For instance conventional marketing decision-support platforms can be augmented with capabilities to analyze patient and clinician survey data speech and focus group patient interactions This will enable them to create structured insights on patient disease groups and facilitate improved reach of targeted therapeutics among those groups

3 Use mobility solutions to create interaction touch points for communicationThe life sciences sales representative has only 60 seconds to convince a doctor of the productrsquos merits This is largely due to the use of conventional modesmdashbrochures sales collateral product samplesmdashto communicate the benefits Transformative mobility solutionsmdashincluding custom applets to talk about the product and video capabilities integrated into the sales reprsquos iPhone or tabletmdashcan help them engage in interactive conversations with the physician

Real-time connectivity solutions coupled with applets to capture CRM data would enable marketing organizations to gain critical insight from various touch points

4 Integrate market and CRM applets on private cloud environments and open co-creation environmentsIn a prescription network the communication touch points across payer groups physicians and patient communities would generate a wealth of information Much of this information could help marketing teams design and optimize their therapeutic pipelines

There is also the larger perspective of addressing therapy-creation and therapy-launch challenges Life sciences companies must integrate internal software and CRM software with mobility solutions This will improve efficiencies and accuracy in addressing patient demands in the pay-for-performance environment

Another important outcome of integration in cloud environments is the ability to co-create therapeutics with core customers and influencers Cloud- based environments for collaboration enable marketing teams to reach out to physician communities en masse They can generate and optimize new product ideas and markets while accessing patient feedback on existing therapeutics

This collaboration also would help marketing organizations improve therapy diffusion by creating a sense of ldquoidea ownershiprdquo among participating stakeholders Plus the per-region cost of deploying sales force would be greatly reduced through the use of media such as real-time web interaction models and mobility solutions

In effect using IT to transform the marketing and sales environment in the life sciences organization adds up to four key action items

1 Engage with the payer provider and patient communities to improve therapeutic penetration across markets

2 Use cloud and mobility as primary media for engaging physicians

3 Drive patient compliance to medication by using patients as key opinion leaders

4 Build a collaborative internal ecosystem that facilitates the exchange of information and ideas between the sales and marketing functions and the larger organization

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

9

Transforming the life sciences marketing environment the way forward

The impact of paradigm shifts in the life sciences marketing function is evident The challenge remains to ensure these marketing functions remain dynamic and sensitive to market and consumer needs at all times

The shift is partially addressed by the availability of IT solutions such as the analytics collaboration and mobility modules discussed in this paper But to build out truly responsive environments using these IT-enabled technologies they must be mapped to organizational strategy and into the core competencies of the marketing function This will help life sciences organizations create therapies build awareness and enable effective uptake of therapies among patients

For more information on transforming your marketing and sales function into an intuitive environment Visit hpcomenterprisehealthcare

About the author

Bhuvaneashwar SubramanianBhuvaneashwar Subramanian is a program manager and subject-matter expert with the HP Life Sciences Market and Sales Intelligence Practice of Global AnalyticsmdashCorporate Strategy and Alliances Division He collaborates extensively on strategy formulation thought leadership and sales enablement initiatives for the life sciences industry

Subramanian contributes thought leadership on cloud computing in life sciences and industry studies on translational research He also provides his expertise to national and international life sciences organizations and is a member of the Open Innovation Task Force for Nanobiotechnology at the University of Waterloo in Canada

Bhuvaneashwar Subramanian holds a masterrsquos degree in molecular genetics from Banaras Hindu University in India He has an MBA in international business from Edith Cowan University in Australia

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

8

2 Choose the right kind of analytics module to maximize outcome of critical decision pointsIn managing decision points regarding pharmaceutical sales and marketing environments a common challenge is the inability to effectively manage huge data streams

It is important for life sciences firms to invest in analytics platforms that offer twin capabilities indexing and contextualizing data into meaningful information and handling data in various formatsmdashfrom structured data such as spreadsheets to unstructured data such as patient comments on social media

For instance conventional marketing decision-support platforms can be augmented with capabilities to analyze patient and clinician survey data speech and focus group patient interactions This will enable them to create structured insights on patient disease groups and facilitate improved reach of targeted therapeutics among those groups

3 Use mobility solutions to create interaction touch points for communicationThe life sciences sales representative has only 60 seconds to convince a doctor of the productrsquos merits This is largely due to the use of conventional modesmdashbrochures sales collateral product samplesmdashto communicate the benefits Transformative mobility solutionsmdashincluding custom applets to talk about the product and video capabilities integrated into the sales reprsquos iPhone or tabletmdashcan help them engage in interactive conversations with the physician

Real-time connectivity solutions coupled with applets to capture CRM data would enable marketing organizations to gain critical insight from various touch points

4 Integrate market and CRM applets on private cloud environments and open co-creation environmentsIn a prescription network the communication touch points across payer groups physicians and patient communities would generate a wealth of information Much of this information could help marketing teams design and optimize their therapeutic pipelines

There is also the larger perspective of addressing therapy-creation and therapy-launch challenges Life sciences companies must integrate internal software and CRM software with mobility solutions This will improve efficiencies and accuracy in addressing patient demands in the pay-for-performance environment

Another important outcome of integration in cloud environments is the ability to co-create therapeutics with core customers and influencers Cloud- based environments for collaboration enable marketing teams to reach out to physician communities en masse They can generate and optimize new product ideas and markets while accessing patient feedback on existing therapeutics

This collaboration also would help marketing organizations improve therapy diffusion by creating a sense of ldquoidea ownershiprdquo among participating stakeholders Plus the per-region cost of deploying sales force would be greatly reduced through the use of media such as real-time web interaction models and mobility solutions

In effect using IT to transform the marketing and sales environment in the life sciences organization adds up to four key action items

1 Engage with the payer provider and patient communities to improve therapeutic penetration across markets

2 Use cloud and mobility as primary media for engaging physicians

3 Drive patient compliance to medication by using patients as key opinion leaders

4 Build a collaborative internal ecosystem that facilitates the exchange of information and ideas between the sales and marketing functions and the larger organization

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

9

Transforming the life sciences marketing environment the way forward

The impact of paradigm shifts in the life sciences marketing function is evident The challenge remains to ensure these marketing functions remain dynamic and sensitive to market and consumer needs at all times

The shift is partially addressed by the availability of IT solutions such as the analytics collaboration and mobility modules discussed in this paper But to build out truly responsive environments using these IT-enabled technologies they must be mapped to organizational strategy and into the core competencies of the marketing function This will help life sciences organizations create therapies build awareness and enable effective uptake of therapies among patients

For more information on transforming your marketing and sales function into an intuitive environment Visit hpcomenterprisehealthcare

About the author

Bhuvaneashwar SubramanianBhuvaneashwar Subramanian is a program manager and subject-matter expert with the HP Life Sciences Market and Sales Intelligence Practice of Global AnalyticsmdashCorporate Strategy and Alliances Division He collaborates extensively on strategy formulation thought leadership and sales enablement initiatives for the life sciences industry

Subramanian contributes thought leadership on cloud computing in life sciences and industry studies on translational research He also provides his expertise to national and international life sciences organizations and is a member of the Open Innovation Task Force for Nanobiotechnology at the University of Waterloo in Canada

Bhuvaneashwar Subramanian holds a masterrsquos degree in molecular genetics from Banaras Hindu University in India He has an MBA in international business from Edith Cowan University in Australia

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

9

Transforming the life sciences marketing environment the way forward

The impact of paradigm shifts in the life sciences marketing function is evident The challenge remains to ensure these marketing functions remain dynamic and sensitive to market and consumer needs at all times

The shift is partially addressed by the availability of IT solutions such as the analytics collaboration and mobility modules discussed in this paper But to build out truly responsive environments using these IT-enabled technologies they must be mapped to organizational strategy and into the core competencies of the marketing function This will help life sciences organizations create therapies build awareness and enable effective uptake of therapies among patients

For more information on transforming your marketing and sales function into an intuitive environment Visit hpcomenterprisehealthcare

About the author

Bhuvaneashwar SubramanianBhuvaneashwar Subramanian is a program manager and subject-matter expert with the HP Life Sciences Market and Sales Intelligence Practice of Global AnalyticsmdashCorporate Strategy and Alliances Division He collaborates extensively on strategy formulation thought leadership and sales enablement initiatives for the life sciences industry

Subramanian contributes thought leadership on cloud computing in life sciences and industry studies on translational research He also provides his expertise to national and international life sciences organizations and is a member of the Open Innovation Task Force for Nanobiotechnology at the University of Waterloo in Canada

Bhuvaneashwar Subramanian holds a masterrsquos degree in molecular genetics from Banaras Hindu University in India He has an MBA in international business from Edith Cowan University in Australia

Viewpoint paper | Respond faster

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copy Copyright 2013 Hewlett-Packard Development Company LP The information contained herein is subject to change without notice The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein

4AA4-6945ENW May 2013