Pharma needs reps that are less "sales" and "business" oriented
There were few surprises in the results of recent research carried out by Verispan, Pricewaterhouse Coopers and Deloitte Touche.
By on Jun 25, 2009There were few surprises in the results of recent research carried out by Verispan, Pricewaterhouse Coopers and Deloitte Touche. When surveying doctors, all of these groups have learned that not only do physicians express negative comments about pharma, but they reject the sales techniques that pharmaceutical companies continue to rely on.
Doctors say they wish to get rid of what they see as time-consuming and useless meetings with these sales representatives. They see what the industry tends to think of as pharmadetailers strictly as sales representatives and view anything they are told in their interactions with reps with suspicion and mistrust.
Doctors allege that all pharmadetailers are trained to be partial. In fact, they suspect that anything pharmadetailers say is shaped in such a way as to favor the product they represent, with the final aim of manipulating the doctors in order to secure prescriptions.
Doctors are consequently oriented towards alternative sources of pharma product information, which they can consider more reliable and exempted from any commercial influence. In the meantime, the cost of sales and marketing for pharmaceutical companies represents their largest expense and is constantly on the rise, whereas the return on investment is decreasing alarmingly.
Originally, the problem was prompted, in great measure, by the international pharmaceutical industry, when it decided to incorporate pharmadetailers (detailing) into the department of pharmaceutical salespeople (order taking). The initial professional title applied to pharmadetailers was Professional Sales Representatives, because much of the excellent work that pharmadetailers do influenced sales. Later, pharmaceutical companies recognized the difference, and started to distinguish between medical salespeople and pharmaceutical salespeople.
Pharmaceutical companies should stop calling all pharmadetailers salesmen, and should start developing new training programs on the most advanced techniques of scientific pharmadetailing.
It is imperative that pharmaceutical companies take action to develop new training programs for their marketing executives and pharmadetailers in the nuances of scientific pharmadetailing and the medico-clinical practice. New training programs on these subjects would help marketing executives and pharmadetailers to better understand the medical mentality, as well as the criteria which influence the prescribing behavior of doctors.
In order to better understand the damage that the managers in charge provoke within the pharmadetailing department, consider that when a pharmaceutical company trains its pharmadetailers on how to apply sales techniques, it is often as if a football coach has trained his football players on how to score basketball shots not terribly relevant or helpful.
A pharmadetailer is not a salesman. A pharmadetailer is a much more significant and precious professional. Pharmadetailers satisfy the pharmacotherapeutic needs of doctors. In addition to that function, they also look after the very important and vital service that we all know as pharmacovigilance.
A primary objective of pharmadetailers is to update physicians on all aspects of the safety and efficacy of medicines. The pharmadetailers major duty is to update the doctor on the most recent pharmaceutical improvements and to contribute to the continuous upgrading of the patients quality of life. It is also his/her duty to be updated by the doctor on his/her assessment of the medicine they represent, giving highest priority to the possible detection of any adverse drug reaction, which was not specified during the initial clinical trials.
Therefore, the effectiveness of the pharmadetailing department should always be relational to the continuous improvement and offering of value added services. The pharmaceutical industry must understand, acknowledge and embrace the requirements of our times, and move from a product-centric approach to become wholly client-centric.
Specifically, pharmaceutical companies should upgrade and strengthen their departments of pharmaceutical marketing and pharmadetailing to be able to communicate with all levels of clients (doctors, hospital administrators, pharmacists, and patients), seeking different objectives depending on client type, for the acquisition of better results in the health sector.
Pharmaceutical companies should exploit all methods that combine modern technology - such as informatics, internet, digital systems and wireless communication - with the human factor. Moreover, pharmaceutical marketers should get away from the prevailing status quo and abolish the costly and inefficient perks and gifts to physicians that the industry has come under such strong public scrutiny for. They should devise some different and unexpected ways to attract and maintain medical interest by physicians to secure the desired results.
As long as doctors avoid or limit their professional meetings with pharmadetailers and at the same time, seek alternative detailing channels, the pharmaceutical companies should revise their policy. They should embrace new technologies with new strategies that will warm up and improve the relationship with the medical community.
The traditional model that is almost exclusively based on the pharmadetailers pursuit to influence the doctors to prescribe the medicines of their company should be revised and expanded.
In conclusion, and in order to stress how important a role modern communication technology will play in the improvement and development of pharmadetailing, it is important to note and acknowledge the following revolutions: informatics, internet, wireless systems and digital technology.
Focusing initially on information, those revolutions increased communication and subsequently productivity, which has significantly altered our lives for the past 40 years.
Those revolutions alone are indicative of the vast progress already seen and which will continue as a result of modern technologies. Technologies, when suitably exploited, can considerably change the potential of pharmaceutical marketing and pharmadetailing, provided that pharmaceutical companies do not continue to be mere spectators to the process.