Marketing

*Ursula Sautter explores how pharma is beginning to center its product development and marketing strategies around the needs of patients*

Ursula Sautter explores how pharma is beginning to center its product development and marketing strategies around the needs of patients

Imagine one day you contract a strange new disease with no known cure that makes your teeth turn green. What do you do?

After speaking with your doctor to determine nothing can be done, you research on the Internet and then contact a pharmaceutical company and ask them to develop a cure. Some time passes and then you receive a healing salve that puts things back to normal.

Mere fiction? The part about the teeth hopefully is, but not the notion of patient-centric product development and marketing.

An increasing number of pharma firms are putting patients needs at the center of their research and marketing efforts, a development that could benefit patients as well as the pharma industry itself.

There simply is no other way, says Neil W. Aubuchon, chief-of-staff of Lilly Bio-Medicines (LBM) and former chief marketing officer for Eli Lillys Japan operations.

Although scientific innovation will continue to be the lifeblood of the industry, it is no longer enough. Pharma must consider the patients needs and their experience from the very beginning of the R&D process.

We will really put the patient at the center, Chris Viebacher, CEO of sanofi-aventis, has said of his firms new R&D and diversification strategy.

We are not going to start with the medicine and go find the patient. We will start with the customer and ask, How do we help that person? We are going to be a lot more open and creative than this industry has been in the past.

Understanding consumers

Most agree it will be a win-win situation.

Medications that are more closely suited to peoples needs will likely lead to better adherence, for instance.

That not only guarantees sales figures but also adds value to society, Aubuchon believes.

But how do you find out what todays consumers really want?

To understand consumers intimately, you need to walk a mile in their shoes, says Glen Sunohara, vice president and chief marketing officer of MSD K.K.

This requires spending time with them as they go about their everyday activities to fully understand what drives their thinking and their behaviors.

When representatives for Japanese pharma firm Eisai spent some time in a nursing home to observe the daily routine of dementia patients taking Aricept, the companys Alzheimer medication, they noticed that many of the elderly residents not only had problems swallowing the tablets but were also embarrassed to be seen doing so.

The marketers took the issue to the manufacturing department, which soon developed a solution: a gel version of Aricept that, packaged in a small plastic container with a peel-off lid, is easy to ingest in a quickand, if so desired, surreptitiousgulp.

Understanding social media

Not surprisingly, the Web also offers plenty of opportunities when it comes to getting closer to pharma consumers.

Social media and the use of the Internet is certainly exploding, says Sunohara.

This trend is also increasing in pharma as consumers look to their peers and to information on the Internet to guide their treatment-making decisions.

According to Brent McCain, strategy and operations director at the Diabetes Business Unit of sanofi-aventis K.K., The role of the Internet is going to become a little bit different from what we thought before. Its going to be a lot more about learning about patients and the social media than it is about getting our message out to customers. Thats where were going to get insights.

Pharma companies trying to find out what makes patients tick can keep an eye on what medical issues people are talking about on Facebook, Twitter, etc, the questions they ask on interactive third-party sites run by patient support groups, or the concerns they discuss in Internet chat-rooms.

For the moment, however, this is kind of passive listening-in is where the companies involvement will have to end.

Current regulatory restrictions in many countries still largely prevent direct-to-customer communications.

I have seen pharma begin to explore with media such as YouTube to increase awareness of disease, says Sunohara.

Given the serious nature of diseases that we treat and the medicines we produce, as an industry, I believe we need to take a careful approach. (For more on social media, see 9 ways your pharma firm can overcome barriers to participating in social media and Social media: A tool for clinical trial recruitment?.)

As for corporate websites themselves, these still have a long way to go until they attract extensive interaction with consumers.

According to market research company Synovate, 72% of Japans cancer sufferers and their families currently use the Web find out about their condition, but they rarely log onto pharma sites to do so.

One reason may simply be that many such sites are ranked low on search engines, according to Shinya Chimoto, research manager at Synovate Healthcare Japan Ltd.

More importantly, the contents of pharma sites simply differ from what patients are looking for, he says.

Many of them want to know what treatment other people receive for the illness or get the latest information on it.

Due to DTC regulations, pharma sites tend to be more geared to physicians than than to consumers, Aubuchon argues, so they are just not the best place to start.

Identifying patient needs

Since many pharma companies are global players with a vast number of customers whose likes, dislikes, and needs vary from region to region, establishing a standardized method for the collection of patient information is important, too.

At Eli Lilly, says Aubuchon, we tried to be more systematic about creating frameworks for how we go about identifying patient needs.

While the results of market research may be different [in different areas,] at least we are using the same tools.

Which, needless to say, makes the subsequent evaluation of the data much easier and more effective.

Wherever the information comes from, it is critical for pharma marketers and pharma development to work closely together right from the early stages of drug development, says Sunohara.

Traditionally, the industry has only looked through the scientific lens during the initial product development stages.

But to drive the value proposition, the marketing lens needs to be applied as soon as possible as well.

Alerting marketers to the realities of a patient's journey is essential in this context.

That may entail letting them take a particular medicationat least in a simulated waycheck out starter kits, contact the corporate call center to find out whats in store, or go through a (simulated) diagnosis process.

Appropriate training in this field can increase success.

To achieve all this, says Aubuchon, we need to make sure there is proper change management in the company. All functions need to understand and consider the patient experience. Marketing needs to be the champion, but our colleagues in medical and manufacturing also need to be at the table.Past experience has proven this to be vital.

Unfortunately, within marketing, we often learn from mistakes, Sunohara admits, like rushing to quickly to air with a campaign before fully understanding consumer insights or launching campaigns not equally strong on emotional impact and call to action.

Pharma can learn a great deal from consumer marketing outside the industry, Sunohara thinks.

Some examples, he says, include market segmentation and developing brands and services based on the needs of these segments.

I love cars and often look to this industry for good examples, he explains.

BMW is a good example for thecreation of a brandhierarchy. Ferrariis a good example ofmarketing to emotion and selling a dream. Volvo is a good example of having a simple positioning and ensuring that their brandsare the safest on the market. Nissans GT-R is a good example of having a clear competitive framework and clear segmentation strategy. The list goes on, but we can learn outside of pharma around segmentation strategies, positioning, customerinsights, and marketing emotional benefits.

Pharma can also learn the service mindset from the consumer industry, says Chimoto, a mindset particularly important to people who are already stressed by their conditions.

Admittedly, much still needs to be accomplished on the way to a truly patient-centric pharma industry

Although we still have a long way to go and were not very good at PCM yet, Aubuchon says.

The important thing is, though, the crucial first steps have been taken.

For more on, join the sectors other key players at Marketing Excellence Japan on May 17-18 in Tokyo.