The commercial pharma landscape is facing new obstacles that are making old sales and marketing strategies ineffective. The surge in new launches, competition for smaller patient populations, and growth in development of novel therapies, means launches are expected to make less money, and commercial teams have less time to establish these products in the marketplace.
The pandemic didn’t cause all of these challenges, but it did make them worse. Launches in the last two years show a 25% gap in monthly sales after the first six months compared to pre-pandemic launches,i and that gap is expected to continue through 2023. Commercial teams also face growing demand for omnichannel engagement, as healthcare professionals indicate a preference for digital interactions over face-to-face visits.
To adapt, commercial teams need to fully understand market and competitive dynamics so they can quantify available market share, map the customer journey, and adapt their outreach messages and methods to address current and future patient needs.
That level of precision cannot be achieved using old launch playbooks and generic sales techniques. It requires a personalized, data-driven approach that can only be accomplished when sales and marketing teams have access to detailed information about the patient journey, HCP preferences, and when patients are likely to seek treatments.
All of this information is available through four modular solutions from IQVIA that leverage artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) and predictive analytics to deliver real-time information about the treatment journey that can inform every decision commercial teams make. These solutions can be used individually, or as an interconnected suite of solutions that guide every step in the commercial process.
Each of these solutions adds value at points in the commercial cycle. But the most innovative companies are figuring out how to weave two or more of these tools together to support their commercial teams and drive more value from their outreach efforts.
For example, one pharma company was about to launch a new treatment for patients with unmet needs in the respiratory market. As part of its commercial planning, they wanted to identify the true attainable market size by assessing current and future patient populations and their treating physicians.
Using IQVIA’s Patient Population they were able to identify patient cohorts with unmet needs across different geographies, and the treatment journeys and switch-related factors that led them to new prescriptions. They then used Smart Targeting to identify high potential physicians and to track performance of execution. A six-month analysis found the commercial team was able to increase precision and granularity with a 17% reduction in patients with unmet needs.
In another example, a large pharma company developed a dual-action type 2 diabetes drug that reduces blood glucose and weight. In anticipation of approval, they wanted to identify patients with type 2 diabetes and obesity and their relevant providers.
The IQVIA team created two customized market definitions for the Patient Population and Journey & Smart Targeting applications. One view focused on the journey of patients with type 2 diabetes initiating advanced therapy, and the other on patients with type 2 diabetes being treated for obesity. The client used those cohorts to identify HCPs seeing high volumes of patients for type 2 diabetes who were not appropriately being treated for their comorbid obesity, which would be useful for HCP outreach strategies.
Just as clinical teams combine data and analytics to make better decisions about drug development, commercial teams need to be equally innovative and integrated. Adopting this suite of tools in an incremental fashion can give commercial teams the data and direction they need to engage HCPs and improve outcomes for the patients they serve.
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i IQVIA EMEA Thought Leadership, IQVIA MIDAS December 2021; Notes: Analysis conducted for prescription products in US, EU5, Japan and China; Includes New Active Substance launches only; Pre-pandemic launches: Jan-15 to Sep-19; Excludes Hep C products