What a shriking sales force means for pharma

About the Author

Richard Meyer is a passionate Internet DTC marketer with over 15 years of progressive experience in consumer marketing who`s worked on top pharmaceutical brands like Cialis, Prozac and Sarafem, as well as two years with Medtronic Diabetes. He is currently consulting for his own company, Online Strategic Solutions, and writes a DTC column for PM 360 magazine and blogs for Eye for Pharma in addition to his own blog, World of DTC Marketing.

Over the past few years we have all read that the cost of maintaining a pharma sales force has increased at a time when more and more physicians don’t have time to meet with drug reps. This didn’t seem to bother pharma who continues to hire people until sometimes there were 2-3 reps covering the same territory but in different groups.

4.4 minutes with a PCP does not offer much

In reading the posts from the salespeople at Sanofi-Aventis you can’t help but feel sorry as their livelihood is taken away via a phone call or FED-X package. However this train has been coming down the tracks for a long-long time. What effect will this have on HCP marketing? Here are some of my predictions..

Sales rep count is continuing to decline

Costs for salespeople are increasing

1. Talent pool is leaking-Make no mistake about it new college grads and really good sales people are going to avoid a career in sales and good sales people are going to bolt as soon as the economy improves and more jobs open up. Strategically pharma needs to look at how they are going to replace talented people that are either let go or chose to leave on their own.

2. Do we really need sales people? This is a question I find more and more clients asking themselves. It really depends on your company and the products you detail. If your product, for example, is in Oncology you probably will need some sales support because of the complexity of the product/market. If, however, you market products that have strong generic equivalents a sales person is not going to help you get a hell of a lot of new Rx’s. Samples can be sent less expensive via UPS and Fed-X and detail aids, such as tissue boxes, are quickly becoming a thing of the past.

3. Medical Journals & Ongoing Education Are Moving Online. Social media is taking a larger role in the information that physicians consume on an ongoing basis. Some medical journals are moving to an online-only format, while others offer a more interactive experience for physicians to engage with their content. Coupled with CME courses and other educational content, this area is growing rapidly as an easy and convenient way for physicians to continue learning and stay up to date on new developments and trends in their specialty.

4. Look to new technology- Make no mistake about it the Apple MacTablet is going to be big in healthcare, I mean really big. The Internet can reach your target physicians when THEY want and new pay-for-performance online detail models are gaining steam. If the Web can reach your target audience more effectively than you need to think more about using it for HCP marketing. By any estimation, the population of physicians online is growing rapidly. Manhattan Research estimated last year (2008) that 88% of all physicians use the Internet to access pharmaceutical, biotech and medical device information.

5. Widgets, Apps and Cool Tools Are In Demand. As more physicians continue to use smart phones and the iPhone in particular, they are seeking applications to help them to everything from calculations on the fly, to watching videos of real procedures and surgical techniques. Online video has been popular already, but the ability to now take these videos and make them portable to go anywhere is unlocking their potential to a wider range of Physicians.

4. It’s a matter of trust- You think consumers don’t trust you? Head on over to Sermo sometime and listen in to some conversations between physicians asking about medical information provided by sales reps.

Is this the future? Salespeople who have a medical

background ?

In summary the drug industry is being forced to look at new models to reach and talk with physicians. Like I said anyone who could not see this coming surely was in denial.

Only 30 percent of executives representing the health care industry in the United States say their companies are ready for reform and changing economic conditions, according to a McKinsey survey on how prepared industry players—payers, providers, and pharmaceutical companies—are for change.1 However, 76 percent say the impact of reform on the industry will be significant, and 54 percent say the same about the effects of the current economic crisis.