Multichannel Marketing 2014

Sep 17, 2014 - Sep 18, 2014, London

Drive Customer Value Through Digital Transformation

Multichannel Marketing Business Case Report 2014

Understand how to keep up your multichannel marketing strategy with the dynamic stakeholders.

Have you heard the one about disease awareness?

If you want to engage patients, it’s important to tell a compelling story, contends Dr Emre Basar of Baxter International.



New digital techniques, novel patient-centered healthcare services, and innovative approaches to communicating health issues are set to take the healthcare sector by storm asit begins to embrace the latest IT revolution.

“Compared with many other industries, pharma is still far behind in terms of harnessing the power of IT for consumer engagement and marketing purposes,” says Dr Emre Basar, a healthcare professional who is also an expert on digital communications. He speaks to eyeforpharma ahead of this presentation at the Multichannel Marketing Conference

What’s more, pharma companies need to run pretty fast to catch up if they want to be successful players in this landscape, according to the Medical Science Liaison for Rigosertib at Baxter International. “If pharma waits too long, global technology leaders such as Apple or Google and smaller internet firms will penetrate this growing market,” he predicts.

Because of his strong interest in both medicine and internet, Dr Basar has pursued parallel careers as a physician-scientist at Harvard Medical School and a co-founding partner of InterNations, an online community for expats. In fact, his enthusiasm for social media started early when he joined Facebook (which was initiated on the Harvard campus in 2004) in its early days at the beginning of 2005.

In 2007, InterNations launched its social networking site with only a handful profiles; nowadays, it has advanced to the world’s leading online community for expats with over 1.2 million members. In contrast to most social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn, InterNations is not only an online network but operates in the real world as well.

“We had half a million guests at 4,000 InterNations events in more than 200 communities around the world last year,” he says. It’s no wonder, therefore, that Dr Basar wanted to harness the potential of digital when he joined the healthcare industry.

New business models

Pharma is currently going through something of a revolution. We’re all aware of the so-called patent cliff, with IMS estimating the industry faces a $20 billion loss of revenue as a result of expiring patents.

“Pharma needs new business models,” Dr Basar argues. One model will revolve around healthcare services rather than focusing on a single product.  “IT tools will become a main pillar of offering those services.”

He also predicts a shift towards increased use of mobile devices. “These days, however, many pharma websites are not even mobile optimized”. Greater penetration of tablets amongst physicians will drive increased interaction with KOLs (key opinion leaders). “Pharma has been slow to appreciate the benefits of new technology and will be forced to penetrate this market and use it more and more in the future.”

Of course, new technology platforms imply much more than simply putting old models online. Technology’s capability to facilitate interaction will drive changes in the way we approach relationships between patients, physicians, pharma, and payers. He cites an example from a related field: ResearchGate – a social media site for scientists – offers opportunities for researchers to collaborate across the world and also make their own research more visible.

Patient empowerment is a key trend

“Digitization of the healthcare market will lead to empowerment for patients,” he stresses. “In the past, patients were very dependent on their doctors. Nowadays, patients are pretty well-informed and hence become more and more empowered.”

Patient empowerment will be enhanced by the spread of wearable technology. “Patients will be more independent. Pharma needs to address this trend because it is also a huge market opportunity for them.”

Disease awareness

outlining a disease as a story by combining a narrative structure with visual elements is “much more compelling than a 'simple' disease information website".

He also flags the importance of harnessing the newest technology and innovative visualization techniques in order to promote disease awareness. “Many patients face the problem of not really understanding the disease they are suffering from. Disease pathogenes is often highly complex and treatment algorithms can be complicated as well. Therefore, outlining a disease as a story by combining a narrative structure with visual elements is “much more compelling than a 'simple' disease information website”, he argues. 

In this context Dr Basar highlights three important tools that can dramatically facilitate the presentation of complex topics and hence improve the communication with patients:

  • Infographics– smart visualization tools can help guide the patient through very complex topics;
  • Digital storytelling techniques (DST) – HTML5-based websites can become more dynamic and immersive, using “outstanding visualization techniques” to provide comprehensive insight into a topic; and
  • Interactivity – embedding interactive elements into a website offers patients the opportunity to dive deeper into certain parts of a story.

Techniques such as the DST are familiar across several industries, including the news media, but have yet to make a splash in pharma. However, they are now set to be unleashed on the healthcare sector and will be driven by a compelling narrative, “great design”, embedded video elements, and a dynamic website that will enable users to drill down into as much detail as they want without being presented with a vast slab of indigestible text.

Dr Basar’s own organization is supporting two initiatives along these lines, including an online blog for leukemia patients and an information portal that offers patients a “totally new insight into their cancer”. He explains: “A disease can be told like a story. It will have a huge impact in terms of helping patients really understand what’s going on with them.”

Shift in target audience

The emergence of such portals also signals a shift in target audience for pharma companies, away from an almost exclusive focus on physicians and towards the end customer – the patient. Of course, cost is a consideration, Dr Basar acknowledges. Such websites don’t come cheap and their underlying complexity means that the conception and website development can easily take many months.

Nevertheless, Dr Basar is convinced that this is the way of the future. “I think it’s your obligation to provide the best healthcare services around the product. One essential service is communication. We certainly need to invest in helping patients understand what they’re suffering from.”

“If pharma does not start to invest into new technologies or if they do not start to innovate, other players will come in from outside,” he warns.


If you’d like to hear more about innovative approaches to disease awareness and how to harness the power of the digital storytelling technique, Dr Basar will be speaking at Multichannel Marketing 2014 in London, 17-18 September. 



Multichannel Marketing 2014

Sep 17, 2014 - Sep 18, 2014, London

Drive Customer Value Through Digital Transformation