Top 10 new pharma drugs: Best does not guarantee success

Interesting article in today's Business Week online on the ten most promising new pharma drugs.

By Richard Meyer on May 5, 2009

Interesting article in today's Business Week online on the ten most promising new pharma drugs. Awhile back I predicted that Amgen's new osteoporosis drug was going to be a huge winner and it tops the list with an A+ rating. However, having the best product is no guarantee of success anymore, launch executional elements have to be be perfect and pharma has to be ready to respond to any threats that could damage the brand immediately. The other key executional element is that the mix needs to be changed to ensure that marketing dollars are not wasted in channels with ROI. Here are some things I believe need to happen for these drugs to become a success.

1. TV drives awareness-The Internet drives conversion: Use TV and online ads to get the word out quickly and measure awareness levels within your target audience. Once it has reached a specified level switch from awareness to conversion using promotional trial offers.

2. Benefits-Tell consumers the benefits in 5 seconds or less. Long positioning statements do not take into account consumer attention deficit in a multimedia world.

3. Product Website- Have an integrated product website but don't overdo it. Consumers don't trust pharma product websites claims

4. Take the message to where your audience is online- Get your message on as many sites as you can where consumers going for health information.

5. Brand Ambassadors: Why not ask people who took part in your clinical trials if they would be willing to share their experiences with others via third party social media sites?

6. Bring people together to talk about health conditions and other treatment options: Brands need to act as aggregators..bring people together to share information.

7. Monitor social media: Hire a service to monitor social media and develop an internal process to quickly identify key threats and issues before the the snowball effect.

8. Ask how am I'm doing: Why not ask your current patients how they like the product and if they received all the information they needed to make the decision to start treatment. What were the triggers and what were the barriers and how can they be overcome?

This of course are just some very broad strokes but the marketing plan has to be fluid to respond to changes within the market as they occur. Keep your eye on the destination but be ready to take a different road when opportunities or obstacles present themselves.