Posts

What really influences uptake curves and how to operationalise this by Dr Graham Leask.

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This is an interesting question that can be addressed in a variety of ways. At an individual unit level i.e. Practice each individual’s decision to use a new product is initially influenced by three main processes. Firstly, evaluation that relates to the individual being aware of the product and interested enough to try it. Secondly, adoption whereby the customer has weighed the clinical evidence together with their own limited patient trial and decided to add the product to their armamentarium – the selected list of drugs that they use to treat a particular condition. Finally, contagion whereby their enthusiasm and the comments of their peers interact to influence the received p ractice view or those of their colleagues. How do we operationalise this – in short by garnering the right clinical  evidence then marshalling and presenting a compelling case but what is of interest to one individual may not interest another at that particular time. In operational terms this means effective

Believes and misconceptions in pharmaceutical industry, how to get ahead

Pharmaceutical industry has its typical behaviours, its intricacies, its believes and its dogmas just as much as any other industry. In this little article I intend to challenge and question some of those and maybe start a discussion with you.  Our environment and customer universe are changing. Changing in a different way than many companies believe. That means that we are most likely training our people to do things that don’t work, marketing our products in ways that don’t resonate with our customers and we ask them to do things they probably don’t want to do. Whilst we do a lot of market research and have large data mining departments trying to figure out patient pathways, we end up not really knowing what to do with the results or interpreting them in a way that fits our believes and dogmas and our ‘experience’.  Despite all the data available about prescriptions, formularies, pathways, we stil cannot work out when patients are on combination therapies. When they actuall

How to make advisory boards work a lot better for you. 10 common mistakes to avoid.

Advisory boards in pharma seem to be a subject of many debates in every company. Countless boardroom debates fuelled by many PMCPA verdicts about companies that tried to turn them into another promotional vehicle by the way they presented the data and the number of people invited or did so many of them that one could wonder how often you need to ask the same advise .... not good and not smart.  Compliance plays a big role but maybe that is because we have actually moved away significantly from the original concept: I have a question or a problem and I would like to ask your help solving it or creating a strategy. I am the first person to push the boundaries on these things but with advisory boards I want to go totally against the grain and argue for a return to proper advisory board basics (check the ' Advisory Board Architects ' by the way for a nice view on these things and a little help). Send your advisors the stuff that you want them to think about beforehand and if they

And now what .... How to be different in pharma. Nobody else is.

I have created this blog in an effort to inspire all those pharma marketers and sales people out there to start doing things a little bit differently in a world where it is difficult to be original and stand out. A world where being seen and viewed should not be about who shouts the loudest. A world where every pharma company seems to be struggling with social media, websites that actually deliver value to patients or customers, decreasing access to customers, apparently increasing compliance frameworks and generally more competition. Competition from other pharma companies and also from technology companies, startups, social media, payers, insurance companies, private healthcare, shambolic imposters and fake medicines, online pharmacies and services, apps.  How do you get noticed? Do you have the ideas to get noticed? Do you have the balls to get noticed? Do you actually want to get noticed? What does it take to get noticed and how are you going to find out if it actually made a dif