Regions
MAIN/REGIONS
regions/
Regions
  1. Americas
  2. Asia & Oceania
  3. Europe
  4. Middle East & Africa
  1. Solutions
  2. Products
  3. Insights
  4. About
  5. Careers
  6. Contact Us
MAIN/search
MAIN/Solutions
Solutions/
SOLUTIONS
  • Research & Development
  • Real World Evidence
  • Commercialization
  • Safety & Regulatory Compliance
  • Technologies
LIFE SCIENCE SEGMENTS
HEALTHCARE SEGMENTS
THERAPEUTIC AREAS

Impacting People's Lives

"We strive to help improve outcomes and create a healthier, more sustainable world for people everywhere.

LEARN MORE
Harness the power to transform clinical development

Reimagine clinical development by intelligently connecting data, technology, and analytics to optimize your trials. The result? Faster decision making and reduced risk so you can deliver life-changing therapies faster.

Research & Development Overview
Research & Development Quick Links
Real World Evidence. Real Confidence. Real Results.

Generate and disseminate evidence that answers crucial clinical, regulatory and commercial questions, enabling you to drive smarter decisions and meet your stakeholder needs with confidence.

REAL WORLD EVIDENCE OVERVIEW
Real World Evidence Quick Links
See markets more clearly. Opportunities more often.

Elevate commercial models with precision and speed using AI-driven analytics and technology that illuminate hidden insights in data.

COMMERCIALIZATION OVERVIEW
Commercialization Quick Links
Service driven. Tech-enabled. Integrated compliance.

Orchestrate your success across the complete compliance lifecycle with best-in-class services and solutions for safety, regulatory, quality and medical information.

COMPLIANCE OVERVIEW
Safety & Regulatory Compliance Quick Links
Intelligence that transforms life sciences end-to-end.

When your destination is a healthier world, making intelligent connections between data, technology, and services is your roadmap.

TECHNOLOGIES OVERVIEW
Technology Quick Links
MAIN/Products
Products/
CLINICAL PRODUCTS
COMMERCIAL PRODUCTS
COMPLIANCE, SAFETY, REG PRODUCTS
REAL WORLD PRODUCTS

CASE STUDY

"Data in a Day

LEARN MORE
MAIN/Insights
Insights/
BLOGS, WHITE PAPERS & CASE STUDIES

Explore our library of insights, thought leadership, and the latest topics & trends in healthcare.

DISCOVER INSIGHTS
THE IQVIA INSTITUTE

An in-depth exploration of the global healthcare ecosystem with timely research, insightful analysis, and scientific expertise.

SEE LATEST REPORTS

INSTITUTE REPORT

"Digital Health Trends 2024 - Implications for Research and Patient Care

READ MORE

EMEA Insights

"IQVIA thought leadership with a focus on EMEA.

Learn more

WHITE PAPER

"DCTs Deliver Big ROI

LEARN MORE

WHITE PAPER

"Capturing value at scale: The $4 billion RWE imperative

LEARN MORE
MAIN/About
About/
FEATURED INNOVATIONS
  • IQVIA Connected Intelligence™
  • IQVIA Healthcare-grade AI™
  • IQVIA AI Assistant
  • Human Data Science Cloud
  • IQVIA Innovation Hub
  • Decentralized Trials
  • Patient Experience Solutions with Apple devices
WHO WE ARE
NEWS & RESOURCES

INVESTOR RELATIONS

"Visit our investor relations site for more information.

LEARN MORE
Unlock your potential to drive healthcare forward

By making intelligent connections between your needs, our capabilities, and the healthcare ecosystem, we can help you be more agile, accelerate results, and improve patient outcomes.

LEARN MORE
IQVIA AI is Healthcare-grade AI

Building on a rich history of developing AI for healthcare, IQVIA AI connects the right data, technology, and expertise to address the unique needs of healthcare. It's what we call Healthcare-grade AI.

LEARN MORE
Meet the IQVIA AI Assistant

Your new expert analyst is here. Be at the forefront of data-driven decision-making with a new generative AI tool that enables you to interact with our products and solutions like never before. Get results you can trust, faster.

LEARN MORE
Your healthcare data deserves more than just a cloud.

The IQVIA Human Data Science Cloud is our unique capability designed to enable healthcare-grade analytics, tools, and data management solutions to deliver fit-for-purpose global data at scale.

LEARN MORE
Innovations make an impact when bold ideas meet powerful partnerships

The IQVIA Innovation Hub connects start-ups with the extensive IQVIA network of assets, resources, clients, and partners. Together, we can help lead the future of healthcare with the extensive IQVIA network of assets, resources, clients, and partners.

LEARN MORE
Proven, faster DCT solutions

IQVIA Decentralized Trials deliver purpose-built clinical services and technologies that engage the right patients wherever they are. Our hybrid and fully virtual solutions have been used more than any others.

LEARN MORE
IQVIA Patient Experience Solutions with Apple devices

Empowering patients to personalize their healthcare and connecting them to caregivers has the potential to change the care delivery paradigm.

LEARN MORE
MAIN/Careers
Careers/
IQVIA Careers
Featured Careers
Stay Connected

WE'RE HIRING

"At IQVIA your potential has no limits. We thrive on bold ideas and fearless innovation. Join us in reimagining what’s possible.

VIEW ROLES
MAIN/Contact Us
Contact Us/
White Paper
Pharma's Future Customer Facing Team
Commercial evolution and the survival of the fittest
Aug 27, 2021
  • Library
  • Pharma's Future Customer Facing Team
To download files, please accept Functional Cookies. These cookies provide enhanced functionality for a better user experience.

The pharmaceutical industry is seeing a squeeze on profitability. This has been driven by several factors, including declining top line growth, with many major companies now reporting single digit growth; push back from payers on pricing and increasing discounts, particularly in the US, and continued growth of R&D costs. As a result, SG&A spending is under pressure and has declined as a percentage of sales for most large pharmaceutical companies.

Meanwhile, the launch environment is becoming increasingly active and competitive. The number of new active substances (NAS) launched in the last five years has increased in all of the top 8 developed markets compared to the previous five years. In the US, the number of NAS launched annually is expected to average 40-45 to 2021. Furthermore, these launches are often sophisticated products entering competitive specialty therapy areas – two specialty therapy areas, oncology and autoimmune, contributed over 35% of all value growth in 2016, driven predominantly by developed markets. As launches are a key focus of promotional activity, companies must support their launches promotionally, even in a context where SG&A spending is generally being cut,. The commercial model is therefore at a crucial point: demand is high but funds are not.

Meanwhile, technological change, with the rise in digital channels of communication and social media engagement, means that opportunities to innovate on the commercial model are higher than ever before. Technology will drive multiple opportunities for innovative engagement between stakeholders in healthcare provision- from the rise of wearables which will give much better insight into the real outcomes and experiences of patients to ever more seamless and convenient communications between pharma and healthcare professionals. Technology driven expansion of the volume and types of data collected about healthcare provision and outcomes extends, of course, far beyond the commercial model, to the potential to drive efficiencies and improvement in clinical development and healthcare provision. However, the broadest view of the technology opportunities to transform the commercial model must not be ignored.

The established commercial model is becoming less tenable and fundamental change is required, meaning the customer-facing team must evolve accordingly. At the core of pharma’s customer-facing team is, of course, the sales rep. The pharmaceutical industry has had a remarkably consistent model for decades, where large sales teams visiting individual doctors has been front and centre of the promotional model. This asset has been tremendously valuable, allowing pharma to have direct relationships with doctors, providing important information on drug innovation and collecting feedback and insight. It will continue to be a key element of any customer facing model. However, it will also change. The customer team of the future will be more diverse in terms of roles, and individuals within it will also require a broader set of skills. It will also, crucially, be a team, interacting to address the whole system, not individual silos.

Face to face detailing by reps has long been the central pillar of promotion in the pharma industry, mainly because the power of this channel to inform and educate healthcare practitioners (HCPs), about products. Our ChannelDynamics™ data shows that in 2016, across all audited HCPs, 59% of face to face details in the top 7 developed markets (US, Japan, Germany, France, Italy, UK, Spain) resulted in HCP conversion, compared to only 32% for non-face to face channels, where conversion is an increase in reported intent to prescribe, or an intent to remain at the same level of prescribing for already frequent prescribers. Nevertheless, as doctors, and the pharmaceutical industry, transition into a multichannel environment it is important to note that the real-world effectiveness of any multichannel promotional model will need to be viewed as the combined effectiveness of all the channels within it, whether face to face or remote, personal or non-personal, digital or traditional.


DOWNLOAD TO LEARN MORE

Related solutions

Multichannel Marketing

Identify the potential and reality of promotional channels with analytics-driven insights, so you can build confidence and optimize investments.

You may also be interested in

Case Study
Preventing Early Drug Discontinuation
Article
IQVIA Impact Summit Q&A
Article
Reducing Waste with Intelligent Automation Accelerates Clinical Trial Success
White Paper
2025 Safety and Regulatory Compliance Trends and Predictions for Pharma and Biotech
Scientific Poster
Evaluating consistencies in measuring patient’s HRQoL between head and neck cancer and multiple myeloma
White Paper
Sustaining Growth in a Changing Environment
Prev
Next
Contact Us