By Rishard Salie, Ph.D., Project Manager

Co-evolution is defined as "the change of an object triggered by the change of a related object.” While this idea is primarily applied to biology, it also clearly describes the relationship between the pharmaceutical industry and health care-based market research. As drug companies shift to meet the needs of their consumers, market research companies must adapt to these changes and develop novel strategies to accommodate them.

Global pharmaceutical sales more than doubled from 2000 to 2009, with cancer therapeutics the most rapidly expanding segment of the market. Oncology treatment has seen a noticeable change in focus, moving away from cytotoxic chemotherapy and antihormonal therapy toward targeted therapy and immunotherapy.

By Marco Rauland, Ph.D., Head of Pricing & Market Access

There is no question: Conjoint/discrete choice methodologies are the gold standard in pricing/willingness-to-pay research since the presentation of several products with different attributes (where just one is price) most realistically reflects the real-life choice situation. Furthermore, as multi-attribute trade-off exercises do not exclusively focus on price (with the exception of pure brand/price trade-offs), respondents are not aware that the research is primarily designed to establish a price and thus they are not “playing a price game” when conducting the choice tasks.

Nevertheless, there are situations where a conjoint/discrete choice design may not be feasible (budget limitations, time constraints, e.g., for a due-diligence; too complex for a specific target group, e.g., patients). In these instances and, ideally, to flank a multi-attribute trade-off exercise, direct price questioning techniques are used to assess the pricing opportunities of a product.

Data Download provides highlights of recently released data from GfK HealthCare. This month's selection covers research from studies conducted in the areas of oncology and diabetes.

Today, it's crucial to track physicians' online behavior and employ more powerful metrics to understand the total customer experience. What can you as a health care marketer or customer experience executive do to respond to the new customer loyalty realities?

As discussed at GfK HealthCare’s May 25 webcast, The New Realities of Building Customer Loyalty – Adapt or Retreat, you can either seize the day and embrace the new customer loyalty dynamic or you can walk away and leave a major opportunity untapped.

Learn how to access the archived presentation recording.

We invite you to join GfK HealthCare June 27-29 in Basel, Switzerland, at the European Pharmaceutical Marketing Research Association’s (EphMRA) Annual General Meeting, Stepping it Up.

In keeping with the conference theme, GfK HealthCare will give two presentations that will address how adaptability, innovation and market understanding will help marketing researchers step up their game to stay ahead of the curve.

As a marketing researcher, are you aware of return on investment (ROI) threats and opportunities? Would you be prepared if the C-Suite came asking for spending accountability?

If not, consider joining GfK HealthCare and other companies within and outside the health care arena as they share thoughts on this important topic at an event hosted by RFL Communication (publishers of Pharma Market Research Report and Research Business Report) - ROI on MR Conference, July 27-28 in Chicago.

Click here to read the issue, which includes:

- The Art and Science of Telling the Mechanism of Action (MOA) Story
- Reconsidering Patients as Payers – Market Research Outside the United States
- Qualifying the Market in an Online World
 


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