Journal of Medical Marketing: Device,Diagnostic and Pharmaceutical Marketing

Medical science liaisons (MSLs) are the pharmaceutical company's clinical representatives who interface with thought leaders and other key healthcare decision makers. The authors offer a description of the strategically important characteristics of tomorrow's most valuable MSLs.

The statistical data provided by the Healthcare Monitoring Department of the Ministry for Healthcare and Social Development of the Russian Federation give evidence that, unfortunately, there is an unswerving growth of general morbidity among the adult population. As the population's morbidity grows, the pharmaceuticals market increases. Ever more international companies enter the Russian market, giving the domestic producers a good run for their money. The government designs federal programmes targeted at reducing morbidity, disability and mortality among the population, improving the quantity and quality of disease diagnostics, and improving the quality of life of the people suffering from serious illnesses. Territorial programmes are also implemented aimed primarily at prophylactic activities. Some pharmaceutical companies provide their own support to the social programmes initiated at the federal level.

India's pharmaceutical sector is currently undergoing unprecedented change. Much of this is due to the country's introduction, on 1st January, 2005, of a system of product patents. Both multinational companies and domestic players are examining the prospects offered by the local market as the government moves forward with initiatives aimed at providing India's more than one billion inhabitants, for the first time, with access to the life-saving drugs they need. A further huge boost to the local market is emerging from the rise of India's new affluent consumers, who lead more Western-style lives and are demanding innovative drugs to treat the chronic illnesses that these changing lifestyles may produce. India's leading drug manufacturers are becoming global players, utilising both organic growth, through the gradual development of their business, and mergers and acquisitions as they seek to boost their presence in existing markets and open up new ones. With these opportunities, however, there are huge challenges that require commitment by both industry and government, and unprecedented levels of partnership between them. This paper is as an attempt to put forth these marketing challenges and suggest the way forward for pharma companies in India.

This paper is based on a survey of doctors in which qualitative in-depth interviews were followed by quantitative online interviews. These were conducted with 80 general practitioners (GPs) in Germany. Special focus was placed on investigating changes in satisfaction, prescription practice and the image perception of doctors in terms of mergers & acquisitions (M&As). Enquiries were made into information-seeking behaviour, awareness of M&As in past years, and experiences with sales and marketing during M&As (as well as preferences), to name just a few examples. The expectations placed on sales representatives as a key marketing tool from a GP's perspective were also analysed. This paper provides an overview of the consequences of M&As on the everyday work lives of GPs. It should contribute to a better understanding of the needs of doctors following M&As and point out where further potential may exist in sales and marketing.

Direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising in the United States has dramatically increased as pharmaceutical companies have benefited from targeting consumers with messages about prescription medications. This study examines DTC advertising from the perspective of senior citizens, the group that uses the most prescription drugs per capita, and reveals their views on DTC advertising, the Medicare prescription drug insurance programme and pharmaceutical retailing. The findings are compared to a prior study of adult consumers and reveal that the elderly are less aware of pharmaceutical advertising, but are similar to adult consumers on their opinions of DTC advertisements. Implications for public policy and pharmaceutical retailing are discussed.

Advertising by dentists in the United States is a relatively recent phenomenon. Historically, most professions prohibited licensed members from engaging in speech activities that proposed a commercial transaction — advertising. The history of a dentist's legal right to advertise is, however, not the main focus of this paper. A brief review of the past, present and possible future of such rights might assist readers in understanding the revolutionary constitutional and commercial speech changes that have occurred over the past three decades. A dentist's legal right to advertise in the United States has developed as part of the evolutionary interpretation of the First Amendment of the US Constitution. The purposes of this study were to determine (a) consumers' attitudes toward advertising by dentists and (b) whether age, occupation, family household income and education of the consumer accounted for any significant difference in attitude toward dentists who advertise in the United States. The intent was to discover information that would be useful to dentists in planning marketing strategies and improving the quality of their advertising. The study seems to confirm the belief of many marketing professionals that advertising and marketing clearly have a place in the future of healthcare services.

Recent research has shown that the Experience Curve can be used to describe price trends associated with medical devices, and that these trends are consistent with those observed in other sectors. This paper presents data obtained from 20 medical device case studies that were found to have Experience Curve slopes of between 65 and 98 per cent. Statistically significant correlations have been established between the slope of the Experience Curve and the corresponding market conditions and product characteristics such as the length of time since the product first gained market approval and the market revenue growth rate. The potential predictive nature of these data is discussed in relation to the corresponding product lifecycle. Importantly, this research reports, for the first time, a two-phase Experience Curve for medical device products, where the rate of price decrease changes at a point in time in response to a definable market variable. The implications of such two-phase Experience Curves and the various market conditions that might trigger this behaviour are discussed with regard to the possible impact on healthcare product marketing strategies. As such, these findings demonstrate the value of the Experience Curve relationship to those developing, selling and purchasing healthcare technologies.

Influencing physician prescription behaviour has always proven elusive for pharma companies. This is especially so in these changing times when physicians are tightly pressed for time to spare on attending to sales calls from pharma sales reps. Previous studies have examined physician prescription behaviour (PPB) as an impact of detailing activities of pharma salespersons (FLEs) and marketing mix variables deployed, with little emphasis on the network connectedness aspects of the physician-salesperson dyad, and its impact on the PPB. This paper aims to fill this gap. From a business networks perspective, a new conceptual model is proposed that incorporates three aspects of network connectedness — resource transferability, activity complementarity and actor relationship generalisability – as antecedents of PPB. The moderating effect of FLEs' role ambiguity, which is a key intervening variable affecting sales performance, is also examined. The suggested propositions highlight the importance for pharma companies to leverage resources, bring complementarity in promotional activities and capitalise on the positive word-of-mouth references of physicians to increase the effectiveness of their salesforce in influencing physicians.

Launching new drugs is getting more and more difficult for healthcare companies that need to manage a more complex customer environment and address the challenge of market access. This paper studies the reasons behind the market access question taking the perspective of the industry and its customers. Implications on organisation in terms of competencies but also culture and leadership requirements are discussed.