The role of every brand manager, regardless of industry, is to ensure their company's voice is heard over the background noise of the marketplace. Unlike other industries, however, guaranteeing a positive reception for a new pharmaceutical product isn't just a case of spending the most on advertising or sponsorship. There are strategies you must adopt in order to influence the market positively and make sure you realize the greatest possible return on your investment.

1. 10 ways…
to influence
the market
A practical guide by Lawrence Liberti and
Patrick Dennin
The role of every brand manager, regardless however, guaranteeing a positive reception strategies you must adopt in order to
of industry, is to ensure their company’s for a new pharmaceutical product isn’t influence the market positively and make
voice is heard over the background noise just a case of spending the most on sure you realise the greatest possible return
of the marketplace. Unlike other industries, advertising or sponsorship. There are on your investment.

2. 1. DETERMINE WHO IS YOUR Figure 1: SOV for product
ACTUAL CUSTOMER
Throughout the research and development
phase, your team had a clear audience in Aripiprazole (Bipolar) 4%
mind – the patients who will hopefully benefit Carbamazepine 8% Ziprasidone (Bipolar) 3%
from your endeavours and innovation. The Fluoxetine and Olanzapine 2%
impetus was to create a better drug that will Risperidone (Bipolar) 9%
improve treatment and quality of life. Lithium 22%
But suddenly, when the drug reaches Quetiapine
commercialisation, the customer changes. (Bipolar) 10%
Except to a very small degree, the marketing
team doesn’t sell to the patient. Neither is
the clinician the primary customer, since
they don’t make the final decision when it Lamotrigine (Bipolar) 11%
Valproate 16%
comes to prescribing your drug.
Undoubtedly they have an influence, but Olanzapine (Bipolar) 14%
your primary customer is that large and
Amisulpride (Bipolar) 0%, Asenapine (Bipolar) 0%
diverse group including third-party payers,
regulatory bodies and patient advocacy
groups. It is these people who will fund marketplace is putting more perceived washing powder: you can effect great
your drug, and it is these people you must power into the hands of the patient. New change by building up that information
convince in your marketing. channels of information, such as the Internet buzz throughout the target community.
Therefore, it makes sense to engage with and direct-to-consumer advertising, bring
the marketing department throughout expectations of receiving gold standard 4. FIND NEW FORUMS FOR
research and development to ensure you treatment. Patients are more literate, YOUR MESSAGE
have a coherent, compelling story of educated by better news reporting, ever As an example, podcasting is capable of
distinct therapeutic benefits that will more available information, and fuelled reaching a huge audience. The portable
convince payers and regulatory bodies, by patient self-help or knowledge-sharing media player is now ubiquitous. It’s certain
not just patients. Indeed, it may be better groups. The ‘hassle factor’ can work, and almost all your patients will own one, let
to think of a drug as providing ‘value in your marketing strategy can only benefit by alone the physicians and academics and
use’ rather than therapeutic advantage. exploring these channels: better informing influencers throughout the hierarchy
Rather than leave the decisions about the patient so that they will act as your of your target audiences, and uptake of ever
which drugs to pursue entirely to the advocate in the clinic, and to some degree more sophisticated and bandwidth-hungry
researchers, your organisation should become your voice in the community. content is growing exponentially.
share the decision between research, What’s more, the podcast has an image
portfolio management, franchise strategy 3. EXPLORE THE AVAILABLE that is exactly right for the innovative,
and marketing teams. This means that CHANNELS OF INFORMATION forward-thinking, ‘new frontiers’ role that
effectively marketing has two distinct An intelligent marketing campaign, then, pharmaceutical companies like to build for
functions: to push information outwards, should embrace all the available channels, themselves. New media is associated with
and to be the voice of the true customer not just the traditional scientific platforms. the cutting edge of science and technology,
within the organisation. The patient group that finds information on a forum for building ‘cool’ brands. Just by
your product website, in order to support the fact of you using it, this type of delivery
2. EDUCATE THE PATIENT their demands for gold standard treatment, will reinforce the image your organisation
Clearly, the influence of each of the target can be a powerful voice. So can the doctors wants to portray – immediate connection
audiences is in flux. Originally you only who network online to share case studies with your audience from a company on the
needed to convince the physicians. Today, and best clinical practice, and to alert each crest of innovation.
as we have seen, it is the third-party payers other to new therapies. Already, we’re seeing pharmaceutical
and regulatory bodies who are your primary Through the Internet, patients and doctors institutions embracing channels like these.
customers. But the role of the patient is alike are sharing knowledge not only about The European Respiratory Society and
changing, too. Arguably, we are witnessing the benefits of new drugs, but about adverse the American Society of Clinical Oncology
a shift back toward the patient as, if not effects, too. ‘Blogs’ give their contributors were among the first to offer podcasts of
a primary customer, but a significant complete, generally uncensored access to their congresses. Virtual sessions were
influence on prescribing patterns. the experiences and opinions of their peers online a week after the event, feeding
There’s always been a ‘hassle factor’ – experiences and opinions which, for good the vast audience of clinicians and other
in the clinics – patients having seen an or bad, can have a huge influence on the influencers too busy to attend. The scope
advertising campaign, or read a news market. You cannot affect these pools of for sponsorship is huge, let alone the
article and demanding the drug for their shared information, but you need to build forum for press releases, clinical trial
own treatment. This can put them into your marketing strategy intelligently to results and marketing messages.
conflict with their doctor or payer, but take account of them.
except in a few high profile cases will not Effectively, you are able to exploit the 5. THINK LIKE A CLINICIAN
generally change the clinician’s prescribing same methods of ‘viral marketing’ that When it comes to influencing the clinician,
habits or influence the payer. other industries use to great effect. It your main problem isn’t that this audience
However, the increasingly diverse doesn’t matter if you’re selling drugs or lacks information about your product. On the
2 PMGroup © 2008 A practical guide by Lawrence Liberti and Patrick Dennin 10 ways to influence the market

3. contrary, they have too much information to Figure 2: Normalised messages with the highest index
deal with. Your voice may well be drowned
out not just by the voices of your competitors,
but by independent research, comparative
5%
studies, and the roar of scientific and market
information directed at this sector.
For you, this is a problem. But for the Olanzapine associated with weight gain 100%
clinician, it’s worse still. Somehow they are
expected to make intelligent prescribing 92%
Quetiapiane is safe and well tolerated
decisions despite not having the time,
tools or resources to turn that barrage of
information into actionable knowledge. 90%
Olanzapine effective for mania
Thinking like a clinician means
understanding the methods by which
79%
clinicians filter out the background noise Lithium reduces suicide risk/rate
to isolate the data or message they can
trust to steer their prescribing habits. You 63%
may not be able to shout above the noise, Lithium effective for bipolar depression
but you can certainly apply objective,
scientific methods to understand how
your messages are being received. 0 25 50 75 100
Clinicians turn to scientific journal Message index
articles and medical meeting content Messages
to analyse and assess the strengths and Avg message index
weaknesses of therapeutic options. They
then use this learning to reach clinically-
supported conclusions about the risk/ new drug. Through message mapping, it releases the first information about that
benefit profile of each therapy. Clinically- your organisation can see analyses of drug. Long before the product reaches
supported decisions are what all good the indications being investigated by its the shelves, you need to have a market
clinicians strive to practice. Knowing how competitors, and can identify respected that is ready to receive it, and eager to
positive and negative messaging affect the investigators to help design and implement begin prescription.
weight of evidence that they use to judge a the clinical program. To achieve this, your strategy should not
therapy, you can emulate their processes just rely on clinical results and scientific data.
and position your products accordingly. 7. BUILD UP A PROFILE OF YOUR DRUG You need to employ the market influence
Message mapping can also help to plan your of objective, independent scientists and
6. LEVERAGE MESSAGE MAPPING TO marketing strategy. It can help to develop clinicians. The more credible and respected
YOUR ADVANTAGE a profile of the strengths and weaknesses, the advocate, the more impact your early
‘Message mapping’ is the term used to from the clinician’s point of view, not only of messages will have.
describe attempts to analyse the information your new drug, but also of its competitors. In other words, your early strategy
that clinicians are exposed to, in order to Identifying the strengths, weaknesses, needs to expand away merely from brand
evaluate critically the characteristics of opportunities and threats (SWOT) of a drug management to embrace medical affairs
its key clinical concepts and themes. By is a key aspect of developing a profile of and medical science liaison functions
developing a systematic means of identifying knowledge about it. Categorising strengths within your organisation, generating clinical
key resources, messaging mapping can and weaknesses about target dugs as data and laying the groundwork for your
identify the publications most likely to shape described in the scientific literature can product in terms of customer education. In
professional opinions about particular drugs provide a unique way to profile a product. not so many words, the internal functions
and therapies. Individual key concepts or messages and external advocates act as front-line
One way to visualise the extent to which influence our understanding of the benefits training teams, not just building awareness
positive or negative information influences and weaknesses of particular therapies. of your product but ‘visualising’ it into
a clinician’s opinion of a particular therapy A ‘message credibility index’ (Figure 2) the day-to-day working practices of
is to aggregate a ‘product credibility can assess key messages, ranking them healthcare practitioners.
index’ value for this information. You may for their strength and frequency. By
find that for some therapies the extent of aggregating the messages (positive and 9. DEVELOP KEY OPINION LEADERS
negative information is almost as large as negative) for a product, you can calculate Every company is different in the way it
the positive aspects of the drug. a ‘product credibility index’. By plotting identifies and engages with thought leaders.
A ‘share of voice’ analysis (Figure 1) can the change in product credibility over The methods you use should cover the entire
show the extent to which there is a discourse time (Figure 3) you’ll learn about trends spectrum of available advocates, from
in the literature about a particular drug and that can occur based on information in the academics and scientific experts to clinical
even in which uses there is more interest. published literature. investigators and the clinicians themselves.
Understanding how competitors have Among opinion leaders, the advocates
developed their drugs will give the clinical 8. PREPARE THE MARKET to target are not necessarily those who
department an edge in designing their Every pharmaceutical company primes speak and read most – being prolific is not
clinical studies to best characterise the the market for its drug from the moment necessarily a measure of whether they’re
10 ways to influence the market A practical guide by Lawrence Liberti and Patrick Dennin PMGroup © 2008 3

4. being heard. To determine this, you need
to analyse carefully the citations that show
Figure 3: Change in product credibility over time
that a person actually has influence on the
9250
therapy area in question.
Exactly as with message mapping, you can
8000
apply objective, scientific measurement to
opinion leaders, ranking them precisely
in terms of their influence and voice. How 6750
prestigious was the paper? How much
Product credibility index
impact did they have? How much did they 5500
contribute? At the same time, careful
analysis of these publications and sources 4250
can show when an opinion leaders is also
being paid by one of your competitors, 3000
ensuring you don’t approach them.
An ‘advocate mapping’ system should 1750
also enable you to apply weightings to
the list of available opinion leaders, so
500
that you can choose the advocate right
for your organization based on their H-
index and the publications (first author, 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007
last author), patents (first inventor, last
inventor), or clinical trials (principal Amisulpride (Bipolar) Fluoxetine and Olanzapine Quetiapine (Bipolar)
investigator) they’re linked to, not just the Aripiprazole (Bipolar) Lamotrigine Risperidone (Bipolar)
Asenapine (Bipolar) Lithium Valproate
overall number of citations. The result is a
Carbamazepine Olanzapine (Bipolar) Ziprasidone (Bipolar)
‘scorecard’ system that gives you the best
fit advocates at a glance.
to be important influencers and to provide product messages are directed their way.
10. REALISE THAT CLINICIANS ARE stability in the sale of future products. When your representative visits this
ALSO ADVOCATES They don’t wait for their peers to adopt kind of clinician, they need to keep in mind
Doctors influence doctors. This means a new drug before following suit. They that they’re not trying to sell a product.
that even on the front-line of patient care, do their own research, make their own They’re nurturing and developing a brand
there are unpaid, unrecognised potential decisions, are likely to be early adopters advocate and, through them, influencing
advocates for your drug. Your organisation – and most of all, are likely to influence the entire market.
needs to gauge not just how a clinician those around them.
influences their peers, but how likely an Indeed, these clinicians can be among your Authors
individual clinician is to be influenced by strongest supporters in the marketplace,
Lawrence Liberti is VP, General
changes in healthcare policy. For example, and should be part of an intelligent
Manager, Thomson Pharmaceutical
if a hospital or private care trust adopts marketing strategy. Instead of building up Services and Patrick Dennin is
a negative stance on a drug, or swaps segmentation data based on prescribing Director and Product Manager for
to another, what is the likelihood that a volume, it makes more sense to build a THOMSON PHARMA KOLexperts.
clinician will cease prescribing it? profile that includes the clinician’s zest for They can be contacted at:
Clearly, if a clinician is not easily influenced scientific data, desire to know more about lawrence.liberti@thomsonreuters.com
by such a swing in hospital policy, he’s of added values such as patient support, and (+1 215 328 4574) and
great value to your organisation. Such the kinds of commissions and panels they patrick.dennin@thomsonreuters.com
strong-minded individuals are most likely sit on, to ensure that the right kinds of (+1 610 450 4732), respectively.
THOMSON MESSAGE MAPPING SYSTEMSM
Measures the potential impact of published scientific information on the clinical
practices of healthcare professionals by ranking it in a way that reflects their
selection and reading processes.
scientific.thomsonreuters.com/products/tmms
THOMSON PHARMA® KOLexperts
There are more experts than you know. Thomson Pharma KOLexperts can help
you to identify, verify, develop and understand the thought leaders, symposium
speakers and product advocates that can support your research and strengthen
your market position.
scientific.thomsonreuters.com/products/kolexperts
EXPERT KNOWLEDGE To request more information about our products and solutions, go to:
FOR SMARTER PUBLICATIONS scientific.thomsonreuters.com/forms/pcad
190x70mm_TR_10ways_ad.indd 1 22/7/08 13:21:23
4 PMGroup © 2008 A practical guide by Lawrence Liberti and Patrick Dennin 10 ways to influence the market