Journal of Medical Marketing: Device,Diagnostic and Pharmaceutical Marketing

In recent years, the healthcare environment has become increasingly networked as a growing number of interrelated stakeholders are gaining decision-making power in the prescription process. The authors argue that companies that do not adjust their organisations to these changes will loose ground to the competition. These companies will find it increasingly difficult to support their traditional target customers and will not be able to address the dynamic needs of important nonprescribing stakeholders. The paper provides an organisational design framework and ideas of how companies can re-organise their commercial operations to remain viable in the future. Two cases present a practical understanding of innovative organisational design.

The pharmaceutical industry in China has undergone dramatic development over the past two decades. From a poor agricultural country, China has now become a country with an increasingly strong economy and, more significantly, the eighth largest pharmaceutical market in the world with more than US$8bn total sales in 2004. This paper describes the distribution pattern of the pharmaceutical industry in China, explores the reasons of the emergence of this pattern, and provides investment suggestions to foreign investors who are considering moving into the pharmaceutical market in China. Analysis of the Chinese pharmaceutical industry reveals: (1) most pharmaceutical firms are located in the southeastern zone, which includes two well-developed areas and three sub-developed areas; (2) the development of the pharmaceutical industry in China is predominantly driven by economy factors; (3) there is a slightly changing market distribution pattern from the micro angle, while the general pattern remains steady from the macro angle and (4) the pharmaceutical industry in China is extensively fragmented. The major constituent factors of these features are: (1) misconceptions of the profitability and growth of the pharmaceutical industry, (2) unnecessary political competition between regions and (3) excessive exploitation of regional administrative power. Finally, it is suggested that the foreign investors should concentrate on the southeastern zone that includes two well-developed areas and three sub-developed areas.

The maturation of markets such as pharmaceuticals, medical devices and diagnostics means that superior strategic marketing skills are now a necessary precondition for competitive advantage in those markets. This paper uses extensive prior research and original empirical work to characterise ‘Marketing Excellence’ and the organisational conditions that are the precursors to achieving it.

This paper examines attitudes of physicians toward direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) of prescription drugs. Physician awareness of DTCA continues at a very high level, although, negative attitudes may impair its usefulness. This study identified shortcomings of DTCA and physician concerns that could be addressed by marketers. For example, three quarters of physicians agree strongly or somewhat that DTCA does not provide adequate information on the risks and benefits of advertised products. More than half of the physicians (53 per cent) believe DTCA results in many patients requesting unnecessary prescriptions and an even greater percentage (66 per cent) believe DTCA creates a preference for brands when lower-cost generics would be sufficient. The negativism of physicians should cause marketers to ask if their return on DTCA is worth the cost.

Direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription medicines (DTCA) is a controversial practice where many of the arguments for and against are not supported by strong evidence. There is little research that considers DTCA from the consumer's perspective, and this paper explores consumer education, consumer protection, medicalisation of consumer conditions and patient doctor relationships. The paper concludes that little is known about the impact of DTCA on actual consumer behaviour in relation to drug acquisition and use.

Doctor's surgeries are typically inefficient: They are generally stuck in the middle of the market, neither providing an individually tailored personal experience, nor one that is fast, efficient and cost effective. Introducing ideas from service simultaneity, and dramaturgy (the theory and practice of dramatic composition), this paper provides a simple but powerful model for the conceptualisation and redesign of the doctor's surgery. We argue that doctor's surgeries that are successful will be those that focus either on standardisation of activities in a back office environment (Service Factory), or high customisation of activities in a front office environment (Service Theatre). Those that attempt to do everything will succeed in doing nothing well.

The notion of patient compliance is a significant topic of debate, as by nature it has implications on a broad community of stakeholders including pharmaceutical manufacturers, physicians who prescribe drugs, patients who may or may not decide to comply, as well as national governments that operate under budgetary constraints. Based on data collected from 2921 South Africa respondents, it would appear that in order to increase sample compliance, the various stakeholders in South Africa may need to undertake further research with the male population, young patients, the relatively more educated and middle income groups, as these sub-categories of individuals have less of a tendency to comply with their physicians' instructions when taking drugs.

Establishing the pharmaceutical brand position — the advantageous location a product owns in the minds of physicians — is arguably among the most challenging components of marketing campaign development. Identifying and owning this coveted intellectual ‘real estate’ is a key determinant of success or failure, especially in today's hypercompetitive environment. Current marketing research methodologies employed to ascertain the ideal brand position are, however, inefficient and ultimately may not permit the development of truly ‘aspirational’ positioning themes. This is simply because in the course of positioning statement development, study respondents (physicians) are exposed to fully formed messages that mingle clinical and emotional benefits with ‘aspirational’ claims, often incorporating idealistic utilization demands (eg, use us first-line). The essential problem with exposing physicians to complete positioning statements is that they are unable to unravel, and thus understand and appreciate, the meaning of these complex accumulations of ideas and often reject them simply based on the ‘weakest link’ principle. This paper proposes an alternative, eminently simple approach called ‘Customer-Driven Positioning’, which more closely reflects the process by which physicians truly want to engage and learn about a new pharmaceutical product. The paper will illustrate where this process should be employed in relation to other qualitative and quantitative research techniques used in promotions development.

This case study describes the history of Bayer's anti-cholesterol medicine Baycol/Lipobay from its early development to its withdrawal from the market. Initially available only in low doses, sales of the aggressively priced Baycol/Lipobay picked up when the product was marketed at higher doses, especially in the large US market. On course for €1 billion sales, the product was suddenly withdrawn worldwide in response to reports of a number of deaths associated with its use. The withdrawal resulted in public criticism of the pharmaceutical industry and the company, multiple lawsuits against Bayer and a decline in the sales and profitability and strategic repositioning of its pharmaceutical division.