The NHS is at a critical point of change and the influence of the individual doctor is declining. Increasingly, doctors’ prescribing behaviour is being controlled by a decision making system- This affecting the UK locally and nationally through PCT’s and NICE.
In response to this pharma’s business model is changing. Sales forces are being split into territories with the growing influence of KAMs playing a pivotal role in pharma’s attempts to realign their strategies in response to NHS Change.
Pharma has still got many opportunities to exploit the changing role of the NHS: nearly one-fifth of all GP’s surveyed by the NAO say their behaviour in prescribing is more influenced by pharma marketing than NHS advice. This is one of many factors showing pharma that re-designing their sales and marketing strategy to a customer-centric approach will yield beneficial results in this turbulent environment.
