Forget thinking about 'the patient.' Pharma's shifting to consumer-centric marketing instead

FiercePharma | Beth Snyder Bulik

Pharma and healthcare aren't just thinking about patients anymore. They're thinking about customers.

It's a shift similar to what happened in the tech world in the late ‘80s, says Scott Rabschnuk, who leads Hill Holliday Health. He worked in technology industry marketing in the ‘90s, when tech companies still called the people they served “end users,” a patronizing term that suggested an industry dominated by experts with little interest in the humans at the end of the line, he said.

For pharma and healthcare marketers now, the tech industry's evolution from treating customers as a faceless mass of end users to considering their input as consumers can be translated to the shift these days toward addressing patients directly. Yesterday's patients, who only got pharma information filtered through their doctors, are today’s informed consumers who actively participate in their own healthcare—and shouldn't be ignored. Pharma marketers have had to become better at creating more consumer-marketing customer relationships, Rabshnuk said.

GENESIS Pharma: συνεργασία με την Amicus Therapeutics®

Την εμπορική συνεργασία με την Amicus Therapeutics ανακοίνωσε η Genesis Pharma για τη διάθεση της μιγαλαστάτης στην Ελλάδα, την Κύπρο, τη Ρουμανία και τη Βουλγαρία, την πρώτη από του στόματος χορηγούμενη θεραπεία και το πρώτο φάρμακο ιατρικής ακριβείας για τη νόσο του Fabry.

Η φαρμακευτική εταιρεία GENESIS Pharma, που δραστηριοποιείται στην ευρύτερη περιοχή της Νοτιοανατολικής Ευρώπης, ανακοινώνει ότι η διεθνής φαρμακευτική εταιρεία βιοτεχνολογίας Amicus Therapeutics, που δραστηριοποιείται στο πεδίο των σπάνιων και ορφανών νοσημάτων, της παραχωρεί τα αποκλειστικά εμπορικά δικαιώματα της μιγαλαστάτης στην Ελλάδα, την Κύπρο, τη Ρουμανία και τη Βουλγαρία.

Top 10 drugs losing exclusivity in 2019

FiercePharma | Eric Palmer Mar 4, 2019

Pharma companies do their best to fight off patent expirations and generic competition as long as possible to protect their big moneymakers. But this year looks like the end of the line for many of the industry's top brands.

Pfizer’s Lyrica, GlaxoSmithKline’s Advair, Roche’s Rituxan, Gilead’s Harvoni and many other drugs are slated or expected to face new generic competition this year. Each has navigated a different path to the patent cliff, but they'll all end up delivering a heavy financial blow to their makers. 

For several companies included in the list, new generic pressure is already here. Amgen, for instance, started dealing with competition for Neulasta and Epogen last year, thanks to biosimilars from Mylan, Coherus and Pfizer. It remains to be seen just how much—and how quickly—biosimilars will hurt the profitable brands.

Other drugs face more uncertainty as they lose some of their IP protections. Enbrel, for instance, is another profitable drug that's nearing the cliff, but Amgen executives recently said their court fight against would-be biosim rival Sandoz will take a while to play out, so it's uncertain when the drug could face competition.

No bigger lineup of drugs is facing copycats for the first time than the one at Roche. Executives for the cancer giant have told investors they're expecting U.S. competition in 2019 for Rituxan, Herceptin and Avastin. Together, the trio of cancer megablockbusters pulled in more than $10 billion in the U.S. last year, Roche reported, representing a huge target for biosim companies.

Pfizer’s Lyrica and Glaxo’s Advair are two household names making an appearance in this year's ranking—again. Pfizer was slated to lose Lyrica exclusivity at the end of last year, but the FDA blessed the drugmaker with a 6-month extension for testing the drug in a set of pediatric patients. Glaxo, for its part, will finally face new Advair competition after numerous delays among would-be copycats. Mylan just recently scored FDA approval for its generic, and the company launched it in February.