Gerard Klop from Vintura, a sponsor at the marcus evans PharmaBrand Summit 2010, discusses how best to tackle the market access issues facing pharmaceutical companies today.
Monte-Carlo, Monaco, June 21, 2010
The name of the game is early stakeholder involvement and internal and external collaboration, says Gerard Klop, Managing Partner at Vintura. Pharmaceutical marketing directors must look for capabilities inside and outside their organisation, as the industry has shifted to a multi- stakeholder, channel and proposition environment, and become very dynamic in nature. Solving everything within their own department would not address the multi-dimensional aspects of the problem, would take too much time to develop and would not create the flexibility to adapt quickly to the ever changing environment. As a sponsor at the marcus evans PharmaBrand Summit 2010, taking place in Monaco, 21 – 23 June, Klop highlights why adopting collaborative models is the way to go.
Why has market access become a multi-dimensional challenge for the pharma industry?
Gerard Klop: There are three challenges in the healthcare market at the moment regarding market access for pharmaceutical products. Firstly, healthcare budgets are under pressure, even more so after the recent financial crisis, and market access is only possible if pharmaceutical companies are able to show the true added value of their products.
Secondly, it is about innovation itself – the industry should either go for products that are highly innovative or try to complement their not so innovative product by adding complementary services and/or products. With these additional services and/or products they can move downstream in the patient flow to manage specific (chronic) indications or move upstream in the area of disease prevention.
Thirdly, there are multiple stakeholders in the pharmaceutical market, who are becoming more involved in the healthcare system. Pharma marketing must have access to different channels in order to be influential, and this includes social media to access patients.
What does this imply for marketing executives? What can they do?
Gerard Klop: Pharmaceutical marketing executives need to understand five things: who their most important stakeholders are, what value they are looking for, where that value can be found, what value to communicate and through which channels. In order to solve these questions, one should look and cooperate both internally and externally. This is the multi-dimensional approach and has big implications for the commercial organisation.
The commercial organisation has to move from single-stakeholder, single-channel and single-proposition, to multi-stakeholder, multi-channel and multi-proposition. To better understand these needs in the market, marketing has to move from a ‘push’ model to a ‘pull’ model and tailor the market propositions and messages accordingly. To make the necessary changes immediately is often very hard, so they must also look for capabilities outside their organisation. This also gives flexibility and agility in a healthcare environment that is rapidly changing. A new healthcare market equilibrium and model has not yet been found.
Besides moving to a ‘pull’ marketing model, a pharmaceutical company could stick to the traditional ‘push’ marketing model, but this requiress true innovation. Of course this is mainly a R&D responsibility, but marketing has an important role to play here as well.
How can marketing executives encourage innovation?
Gerard Klop: First of all, the marketing function can fuel the R&D organisation by feeding in market insights and needs. Especially, what the main stakeholders are looking for and what the competition is doing. Again collaboration, in this case internal cross-functional collaboration, where in the past there was a Chinese wall between the two.
Secondly, marketing could stimulate external R&D collaboration by introducing key external stakeholders into the R&D process, indicating potential R&D and healthcare partners, and in general communicating the concept of collaboration and open innovation.
Pharmaceutical companies must stimulate their R&D department to look for new ways to innovate. They can collaborate with smaller companies and acquire them once they prove successful or introduce an open innovation concept to create synergies and win-win situation between divisions and companies with complementary know-how and technologies. An example of this would be convergence between pharmaceuticals and medical devices, thereby combining different technologies, adding value and an edge to an already existing pharmaceutical product. Other examples would be diagnostic devices with tailored medicine or anti-biotic infused implants, or what Philips Medical Systems did by combining electronics with medicine, thereby creating the e-pill, which gives a special signal once it has been swallowed and is in the stomach.
What can we learn from other industries?
Gerard Klop: The pharmaceutical industry by tradition is rather closed and inward looking because it is so much IP driven. However, today’s environment requires a more open attitude and better understanding of the outside world. Other industries have already moved in this direction because they are acting in less regulated markets and also have the possibility to communicate directly with the end consumer, still a restriction for the (European) pharmaceutical industry today. However certain concepts like collaborative models, early stakeholder involvement, open innovation, and social media can be introduced to overcome some of the market hurdles.
Marketing executives have to be honest with themselves, and understand where the strengths of their organisation are. They need to go for collaborative models, where they have to play among different dimensions and act quickly to get their products on the market. One should think offensive rather than defensive. Step in and do not try to defend the past, but try to look for new opportunities and ways to the market, breaking down internal and external silos.
Our healthcare systems are in constant transition and there is no new equilibrium yet. Organisations have to be flexible as they cannot afford to be ridged, and start building everything by themselves. The need for flexibility is another reason to look for more virtual organisations, by means of partnering and collaboration.
Contact: Sarin Kouyoumdjian-Gurunlian, Press Manager, marcus evans, Summits Division
Tel: + 357 22 849 313
Email: press@marcusevanscy.com