In 2020, the pandemic forced a dramatic switch to a 100 percent remote commercial model for the pharmaceutical industry virtually overnight. While many digital technologies had already been evaluated or implemented by pharmaceutical companies, this event accelerated a digital-first approach with many enterprises deploying and scaling new technologies in days; events that would previously have taken months or years.
Today, even individuals that were digital novices a year ago can navigate the myriad of technologies that help people connect, communicate and engage in all aspects of life. Health care professionals (HCPs) are consumers too and they also prefer new ways of engaging life science companies with similar customer experiences and levels of customer satisfaction.
In the traditional pharmaceutical model, to drive awareness, trial, and usage, sales representatives would push out information about treatment to all the HCPs in their territory to ensure that they were aware of the relevant details of the particular drug and the associated patient benefits for the appropriate patient type. Competing pharmaceutical representatives would set up meetings or provide unsolicited information about why an HCP should choose their product – like making a case for Coke over Pepsi. Much of this activity was based on the sales representatives’ knowledge and experience with the HCPs in the territory and driven by static target lists and goals.
Access to HCPs had already been decreasing before the pandemic and recent events have only exacerbated this challenge. Today, HCPs are burdened with increased responsibility to their patients and practices while trying to manage the flood of information they receive over the available digital channels that life science companies have turned to in place of personal interactions. It is not unreasonable to anticipate that HCPs will soon characterize the success of a relationship with a pharmaceutical representative not by the amount of information they provide but by the relevance, quality, and speed with which they can provide access to the information they need.
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The good news is that the pharmaceutical model is changing. As companies look to innovators like Netflix for inspiration, new platforms are being launched to put the HCP in control. The model is shifting from “push to pull” and today, secure portals can warehouse libraries of information that are not only available whenever the HCP needs access but are also enabled with technology to make recommendations for new relevant content based on what has been viewed previously.
Today’s “Coke vs Pepsi” might be the Pfizer vaccine compared to the Moderna vaccine but without a patient “taste test.” As patients continue to become more involved in their own health care, HCPs may need to be ready to answer critical questions about available treatment options and pharmaceutical representatives will need to be armed to provide quick access to the best information and treatment plans.
Source: Hitconsultant
