The future of pharma's salesforce

PharmaTimes magazine | Katrina Megget*

The future of pharma's salesforce has been a hotly debated topic for years. Now we wave goodbye to one-size-fits-all and embrace a field force fusion

It has been a turbulent few years for pharma's salesforce as the industry has tried to find its feet amid a shifting healthcare landscape. For all intents and purposes, the sales rep should be dead, yet the role remains, and largely intact – albeit head count has reduced and other roles and job titles have sprung up. Indeed, the salesforce of the future is beginning to take shape. And there's even a place for the sales rep, experts say. That's because the new salesforce will be a blend of roles and capabilities.

"The salesforce is changing," says Alan Kidd, business development manager at CHASE. "It's becoming increasingly a mix – an educational and promotional mix, which includes digital and e-detailing, other roles and even health outcomes consultants."

This is echoed by Ryan Wooller, business development director at Star. He says the salesforce of the future will be made up of different role types, deployed in different geographies with messages tailored to reflect the requirements of the local health economies. "The days of the one-size-fits-all national sales team are numbered," he states.

Top 10 patent losses of 2017

Eric Sagonowsky | FiercePharma

Among the many meds that’ll lose patent protection in the U.S. this year are 10 drugs that each contribute in a big way for top drugmakers. Eli Lilly, Pfizer, Takeda, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Gilead are each set to hit the patent cliff this year with some of their respective big sellers.

Together, they brought in more than $10 billion last year in the U.S. and cover a range of indications: multiple sclerosis, HIV, erectile dysfunction and cancer, among others. They’ll be hot targets as generic rivals rush to steal share with cheaper options.

Just when a drug will lose market exclusivity isn’t always clear, with add-on patents and legal settlements occasionally clouding the picture. We've focused not only on drugs that will lose their patent shields in 2017, but those that, because of patent litigation or settlements, will find themselves vulnerable to generic or biosimilar competition.

Pharma's latest idea for getting drug info in front of docs? Give them a single login

Six big pharma companies are joining forces to create a one-step login for doctors and healthcare providers to get drug information. The newly formed Align Biopharma group includes Allergan, AstraZeneca, Biogen, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis and Pfizer, along with life sciences software solutions company Veeva Systems.

They’re banding together to address the problem doctors have in digitally accessing information from pharma companies. While use of digital information among doctors has grown—as visits by pharma sales reps continue to decline—so has the difficulty in managing a wide array of sources.

The goal of the group is to create two industry standards—one for identification and the other for consent and preferences, with work on the identification standard already begun. With one standard, physicians and healthcare providers would be able to use a single login to access an array of different pharma sites.

Νέες περικοπές 150 εκατ. ευρώ στη φαρμακευτική αγορά από το υπουργείο Υγείας

capital.gr | Βασιλική Κουρλιμπίνη

Με την "πλάτη στον τοίχο” βρίσκεται η πολιτική ηγεσία του υπουργείου Υγείας μετά την εντολή των δανειστών οι δαπάνες για το φάρμακο φέτος να μειωθούν κατά τουλάχιστον 30% σε σχέση με το 2016. Σε απόλυτα νούμερα, το ποσοστό αυτό μεταφράζεται σε επιπλέον περικοπή περίπου 150 εκατ. ευρώ μέχρι το τέλος της χρονιάς, δεδομένου πως πέρσι ο προϋπολογισμός του φαρμάκου υπολογίζεται πως ξέφυγε κατά σχεδόν 450 εκατ. ευρώ.

Ο όρος για περιστολή της υπέρβασης στις δαπάνες του φαρμάκου, ο οποίος άλλωστε περιλαμβάνεται στο επικαιροποιημένο μνημόνιο, είναι εδώ και μήνες γνωστός στους δύο αρμόδιους υπουργούς Ανδρέα Ξανθό και Παύλο Πολάκη, εντούτοις ακόμη να βρεθεί ο τρόπος με τον οποίο θα επιτευχθεί η παραπάνω υποχρέωση.

The World’s Most Reputable Pharmaceutical Companies 2016

Customers’ satisfaction is immensely important for the pharmaceutical companies. When these companies focus on innovation and act responsibly, they gain the required trust from the customers all over the world. Based on how good people feel about big pharma, a ranking has been published by the Reputation Institute (RI). Based on the ranking, we have chosen the following top pharmaceutical companies:

Bayer

Bayer is a German pharmaceutical and life science company which is headquartered in the city of Leverkusen. The company was founded in 1873. The pharmaceutical division of the company focuses on prescription drugs for women’s healthcare and cardiology. It also concentrates on specialty therapeutics in the areas of hematology, oncology, and ophthalmology. Its annual revenue in 2015 was $52 billion.

Abbott Laboratories

Abbott Laboratories is a global healthcare company headquartered in Illinois, United States. In 2015, its annual revenue was $20.4 billion. The company is trying to help people lead healthier lives by creating breakthrough products in branded generic pharmaceuticals, diagnostics, nutrition, and medical devices. More than 74,000 people work in this company, and it is operating in over 150 countries.

Pharma-to-physician social media and app marketing will soar by 2018: report

Pharma companies’ marketing communications to their target audience of healthcare providers are increasingly digital. That's not terribly surprising, considering the uptake in digital channels among physicians for professional use.

What is changing, however, is the way pharma reaches doctors, according to an annual report from from healthcare and pharma solutions provider Indegene. In 2016 in the U.S., brand promotional emails, healthcare provider portals and key opinion leader webinars are the top three ways pharma companies reach out. However, by 2018, KOL webinars, social media and mobile apps will top the list, with social media and mobile apps growing the fastest, by 50% and 27%, respectively.

The social media investment is already underway, which will power the expected usage jump, Urvi Mehta, senior manager, strategic relationships at Indegene, told FiercePharma.

“Social media is a very powerful channel that can help in understanding the end consumers. It’s easy to make marketing decisions like segmentation, course of patient education, and influence adherence through listening and analysis of the social behavior,” she said.

While KOL webinar growth will be smaller at 8.8%, that channel was identified as the best return-on-investment generator by the more than 100 global pharma and life science companies that responded to the survey.

ROI, in fact, is an ongoing concern. Even among the rise in projected spending, seven out of 10 pharma companies noted that demonstrating ROI is the biggest barrier when implementing new communication strategies.

U.S. pharma companies are second globally in digital spending, with 31% of companies spending more than 20% of their budgets on digital. By 2018, Indegene expects that to increase to 40% of companies. China leads with 33% of its pharma companies spending more than 20% on digital, and that figure is expected to rise to 50% by 2018.

Επικίνδυνες οι επικείμενες αλλαγές στη φαρμακευτική πολιτική

Την έντονη αντίθεσή του στο ενδεχόμενο θεσμοθέτησης και εφαρμογής των αλλαγών που προωθεί το Υπουργείο Υγείας στη φαρμακευτική πολιτική, εκφράζει ο ΣΦΕΕ, χαρακτηρίζοντάς τες ως «επικίνδυνες» τόσο για τη βιωσιμότητα των φαρμακευτικών εταιριών όσο και για τους ασθενείς.

Η αντίθεσή αυτή συνίσταται στο γεγονός ότι παρεμποδίζουν την απρόσκοπτη πρόσβαση των Ελλήνων ασθενών στις αναγκαίες γι’ αυτούς θεραπείες, καθυστερούν σημαντικά (2-4 χρόνια) την είσοδο νέων θεραπειών και πλήττουν καίρια την καινοτομία (οριακή και επαναστατική καινοτομία), τη Δημόσια Υγεία, τη βιωσιμότητα των επιχειρήσεων και τις θέσεις εργασίας.

How artificial intelligence is the future of pharma

 By Professor Jackie Hunter*

There needs to be a fundamental shift in drug discovery and artificial Intelligence holds the key to bringing the pharma industry into the 21^st Century.

The current drug discovery process needs to shift dramatically in order to meet the needs both of society and patients in the 21^st Century. Artificial Intelligence and machine learning in particular, present the pharmaceutical industry with a real opportunity to do R&D differently, so that it can operate more efficiently and substantially improve success at the early stages of drug development.

The long term benefits of this will mean that the vast resources and money used to develop drugs in the current process will be deployed more effectively to give not only a better return on the investment but also a substantial increase in the delivery of new medicines for serious diseases.

The current drug discovery process – too lengthy and very expensive

It can take up to 15 years to translate a drug discovery idea from initial inception to a market ready product. This contrasts with the rapidity of innovation in other industry sectors.

Trump just dropped a big hint to the pharmaceutical industry

Carolyn Y. Johnson | Washington Post

A single sentence in President-elect Donald Trump's health-care platform sends a strong hint to the drug and medical device industry that they may have an easier time getting their products on the market under his administration.
“Reform the Food and Drug Administration, to put greater focus on the need of patients for new and innovative medical products,” his health plan states.
On the face of it, the bullet point may seem almost bland, but efforts to integrate patients' preferences and encourage innovation often result in proposals aimed at speeding up the process for getting new medicines on the market by easing regulations. Critics argue that such efforts can erode standards that are in place to protect patients from drugs that don't work and might even be harmful.

Νέες ρυθμίσεις για τους ιατρικούς επισκέπτες

Νέες ρυθμίσεις για τους ιατρικούς επισκέπτες στα δημόσια νοσοκομεία αλλά και γενικότερα στις δημόσιες μονάδες Υγείας, θέτει εγκύκλιος του υπουργείου Υγείας. Ειδικότερα, αλλάζουν όπως φαίνεται τα πάντα για τις επισκέψεις ενημέρωσης που πραγματοποιούν οι ιατρικοί επισκέπτες στις δημόσιες δομές (ΠΕΔΥ και Κέντρα Υγείας), καθώς πλέον θα πρέπει εκτός των άλλων να κινούνται σε συγκεκριμένο ωράριο που θα καθορίζεται από τους επικεφαλής των Μονάδων Υγείας, ενώ δε θα επιτρέπεται να παραμένουν σε κάθε γιατρό πάνω από 10 λεπτά.

Η απόφαση ελήφθη μετά από συνάντηση που πραγματοποίησε με την Πανελλήνια Ομοσπονδία Ιατρικών Επισκεπτών, ο Αναπληρωτής Γενικός Γραμματέας για την Πρωτοβάθμια Φροντίδα Υγείας, Σταμάτης Βαρδαρός ο οποίος και απέστειλε στις Μονάδας Υγείας του ΠΕΔΥ και τα Κέντρα Υγείας της χώρας, εγκύκλιο με την οποία τίθενται όρια στη λειτουργία των ιατρικών επισκεπτών εντός των δημοσίων δομών.