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All successful pharma product launches, regardless of geography, require special resource allocations from the time they are in development to overcome the challenges of competitive pressures, clinica

By Editor on Oct 6, 2005

All successful pharma product launches, regardless of geography, require special resource allocations from the time they are in development to overcome the challenges of competitive pressures, clinical proficiency, commercial prospects and regulatory hurdles. To meet these challenges, pharma companies must employ the right mix of budgets and staff from the right support functions at the right time.

But according to European Pharmaceutical Marketing: Launching Successful Brands, a new report from Cutting Edge Information, although the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products has made gaining regulatory approval in Europe much easier, pharma marketing in Europe is still a uniquely difficult challenge thanks to a host of factors that differ from country to country. These include pricing, reimbursement practices, local regulations and customs, healthcare systems and practices, payor groups, languages, sales practices, and product messaging.

Even if a drug company strikes the delicate balance of coordinating marketing efforts across the 25 EU member countries and numerous other European countries and has a successful launch, the marketplace can still be harsh, says Jon Hess, lead analyst on the study for Cutting Edge Information. Brand teams must remain diligent and stay fully aware of developments in every country, or they risk declining revenue streams due to generic competition, parallel importing and patent challenges.

Hess says relationship marketing has become increasingly important and brand teams must learn to navigate complex networks of influencers, payors and prescribers for products to achieve their full sales potential.

The report, which examines marketing budgets and staffing levels for 23 brands from pre-clinical development through post-launch representing a range of competitive pressures, financial backing, clinical proficiency and commercial prospects, provides useful models for teams moving to launch.

From the results of the study, Hess and his colleagues synthesized five principles for success as signposts to help teams improve their marketing function for the commercialization of new products.

First, Cutting Edge Information finds that because of the absence of direct-to-consumer advertising in Europe brand teams must shift the strategies they use to promote key product platforms in the US and other markets to instead target influencer and prescriber networks through other channels. Hess says these include advisory boards, symposia, congresses, thought leader relationships and the sales force.

Advertising consumes a smaller percentage of European marketing budgets in every category from blockbuster brands to niche products. And companies do not allocate advertising funding in Europe as early as they do on a global scale, Hess says.

Of the 16 main brands analyzed in the report, only three spent even small amounts advertising before Phase III. In contrast, half of 16 brands whose global marketing budgets were analyzed in other Cutting Edge studies dedicated funding to advertising by the end of Phase II.

The second key finding recommends that US-based firms with little European marketing experience and limited promotional infrastructure should consider negotiating co-promotion agreements to gain infrastructure, extend commercial reach and increase market penetration.

In the absence of a European sales and marketing presence, many companies find that the best course of action is to leverage the experience, expertise, resources and influence of a co-promote partner with a strong European promotional infrastructure, Hess says.

Third, the study's authors recommend determining the relative ROI before assigning marketing budgets to drugs with blockbuster, mid-level and niche sales expectations. Once a compound's peak sales potential is determined, Hess says, companies must then provide the necessary resources to ensure that the drug reaches its full potential.

But during the resource allocation process, companies should keep in mind the relative return on investment their marketing funds will bring, especially since they differ from one peak sales category to another.

Not all drugs, Hess says, are able to benefit from a mature promotional infrastructure or a strong clinical profile. So the author's fourth recommendation to brand teams is to work diligently to provide brands with comprehensive marketing efforts that underscore brands's strong attributes and surmount their downfalls.

To do this, companies must be deliberate and strategic in allocating resources to a marketing mix that best complements their objectives. The secret to success in launching any brand, the authors observe, is having the foresight to identify brand challenges and tackle those obstacles with targeted resources and strategic planning.

It's no easy task to identify all the hurdles that will be thrown in the way of a brand's success, Hess says. But, if brand teams can alleviate recognized shortcomings as early as possible in a drug's development, they can put drugs on the right track to achieve their highest revenue potential.

Last, Hess says brand teams commercializing products with mid-level revenue expectations must balance their investments to address key challenges and may often have to sacrifice one avenue of resource allocation for another.

Each of the mid-level brands profiled in the report received conservative investments either in marketing budgets or staffing throughout development, he says. And the brand teams managing these drugs had to make difficult decisions as they backed different approaches to launch.

But perhaps the greatest challenge of launching drugs in Europe is coordinating the effort, Hess says.

Companies often lose valuable time when launching a product because of errors in project management and roadblocks created by less-than-optimal marketing team structures. And Hess says the reporting relationships between corporate and affiliate marketers often dictate the timeline by which a company can launch a product.

Through trial and error, successful companies have built commercialization structures that integrate corporate project management with affiliate-level marketing, he says. And most companies implement dual oversight of product marketing, with the level of strategic influence varying for each team.

To learn more about the report and other research from Cutting Edge Information, visit the report web site at www.EuropeanPharmaceuticalMarketing.com .

And if you are interested in European pharmaceutical marketing, be sure to register to attend eyeforpharma's 5th Annual Marketing ROI for Pharma Congress, being held November 14-15th in Amsterdam. To learn more about the conference, visit the conference web site or call the eyeforpharma team at +44 20 7375 7193.