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 And the Beat Goes On...
This month's Orange Pages article continues
the same theme that has been addressed for several
months now in Orange Pages and
Vanderveer's Views - that the health care
marketing sector is about to undergo a change far
more fundamental than budget cutbacks and the
involvement of procurement departments in selecting
marketing research agencies, among other
developments.
More specifically, this month's discussion focuses on
two recently published resources that both point in the
same direction: the need to fundamentally rethink
virtually every aspect of health care and its delivery.
The article analyzes findings released in a mid-June
report by PricewaterhouseCoopers that predicts
health care costs for U.S. businesses will grow 9
percent next year. And it explores the major points of
the new book "Designing Care: Aligning the Nature
and Management of Health Care," by Richard M.J.
Bohmer, MD, in which the author contends that
previous attempts to "fix" health care have missed
their mark by focusing on how to pay for health care,
rather than on trying to make health care more
effective and efficient.
The discussion is followed by concluding thoughts on
what these impending changes within health care
mean for pharmaceutical marketers and marketing
researchers.
 How Marketing Research Needs Differ for West Coast Biotechs
By Christine Naegle, RN, M.A., Senior Vice President, West
Coast
It used to be that we suppliers - the term used then -
met with our pharmaceutical clients, discussed their
research needs, determined a solution and sent off a
proposal. We sometimes still do the same today, but
more often than not we are expected to provide a
much higher level of consulting. Back then many
marketing researchers in pharmaceutical companies
were previously "detail men" who knew their
customers and therefore knew how to encourage
doctors to write prescriptions for their brands.
Competition in the pharmaceutical industry was there
but it wasn't so tough or so strong. There simply
weren't that many brands to choose from and while
you needed to be smart and competitive, the process
was relatively simple. Drug companies could sell their
products based on relationships, giveaways, sample
drops or meals.
Then along came more competition, sweeping
changes in the insurance industry and more
government regulation, and with all of that came the
need to market differently. Big pharma companies
began running shoulder to shoulder, competing for
share with lots of me-toos - antibiotics, allergy
medicines, antihypertensives, etc. Most medicines at
the time were chemically based.
But in the mid-1950s Crick and Watson discovered
the double helix of DNA, the hereditary molecule of the
cell, a sequence of nucleotides that runs as a code to
direct the synthesis of protein. Understanding more
about DNA through further research and discovery,
uncovering human genomes and developing
advanced diagnostics led to more sophisticated
medicines.
GfK Healthcare Expands: New West Coast Staff and San Francisco Office
GfK Healthcare is committed to serving all clients with superior local support. In addition to its three East Coast-based offices in Princeton and East Hanover, New Jersey and Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, GfK Healthcare is now expanding. In order to better meet the needs of its growing base
of West Coast biotech clients with additional
on-the-ground support, GfK Healthcare is pleased to
announce the opening of its San Francisco office and
the addition of two professionals to its existing West
Coast-based staff.
Did You Miss the June Issue of Topline?
Click
here to read the issue, which
includes:
Topline
archive is available. Skim the
directory and select
articles you missed. Access subscriber
opt-in/comment form.
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July 2009
 Effectiveness and Efficiency in Health Care Marketing Research - Where Do We Find It? As pressures for profitability rise in the pharmaceutical industry, everyone involved in marketing or marketing research functions, including those employed by companies and those working for the agencies that service them, must focus with laser-like intensity on providing effectiveness, i.e., on producing results that make a difference, and efficiency, i.e., at doing so at the lowest cost possible. In this "Vanderveer's Views," I would like to offer examples of how and how not to achieve these outcomes. Several years ago, an industry trend began that gave me a very cold chill indeed. First one company, and then a few others, conducted "reverse auctions" on the Internet to determine what marketing research agencies would get their business. If you are not familiar with the process, a reverse auction asks each pre-vetted potential supplier of marketing research services to submit the hourly rate that it would charge for a number of different levels of professional personnel. These rates are then posted on a Web site, and at the appointed time all the agencies are given the opportunity to see the position in which their initial quotation puts them among competitors in terms of cost-effectiveness (read cheap!), and to submit new (read lower!) bids until they are satisfied with their position. Various rules were put into place as to what percentage of business of the company sponsoring the auction would go to what number of the cheapest vendors, and at the end of the hour, or whatever time period was set aside for the auction, the die was cast in terms of which provider(s) would enjoy how much largesse for the coming year. Mercifully, this practice did not spread across the entire industry, or remain in place for very long, since it suffers from a number of serious flaws. For example, this process puts the procurement department, which historically had no involvement in marketing research whatsoever, almost entirely in charge of vendor selection. While it is true that marketing researchers did get to select, as bidders, those marketing research agencies they would consider acceptable, they often did not get much say in terms of the order of preference in which they viewed the competitors, the situations in which they would and would not use them and the particular personnel with whom they had had good and bad experiences...  Richard B. Vanderveer, Ph.D. CEO, GfK Healthcare   |
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