Due to the targeted nature of the pharmaceutical industry, marketing and research have implied notions to consider, very different from the FMCG and other industry practices. At least, whereas industries like FMCG might have a direct consumer base, that of pharmaceuticals is far more complex, catering not just to the healthcare industry but to patients as well. As Sunder Muthuraman, executive vice president of Ipsos MMA, elucidated, “The industry stands at Rs 5.4 Lakh crores, and spends about Rs 2,000 crores in marketing research. While medicines are not used every day by all of us, it’s still about half, or more than half the size of FMCG which is very, very large.”
The numbers are specifically about the pharmaceutical industry, with only 20% of the healthcare industry. The hospitals in what they offer as services form 70% of the industry, and the other 10% is from Medtech and others.
Against this background, the Market Research Society of India organized a webinar with a panel of experts discussing the transformation role marketing and research play in the dynamic healthcare industry. Muthuraman moderated this panel, in which Amitabh Mishra, head of insights and analytics, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories; Gauri Pathak, country service line leader, Ipsos; Praful Akali, founder and managing director, Medulla Communications; and Dr. Sanjoy Mitra, founder and managing director, SMSRC, shared their insights and analytics process.
Moving from prescription audits to EMRs
Dr. Sanjoy Mitra provided a historical perspective on the development of research without prescription data, explaining that the industry once had much of its prescription data during 1977 through manual analysis, and in 1986 moved to EMR to add another fine level of detail of the prescription. “In 1986, when I joined, the industry was trying to move from manual analytics to EMR data, where prescription data can be digitalized and more accurate and specific in nature—to know the trends and behavior from different segments of the doctors related to different disease areas.” The industry has been empowered to look forward to getting more concrete and in-depth insights into the doctor prescription patterns and behaviors.
Gauri Pathak added that understanding patient journeys and treatment flows to inform patient-centric strategies is key. “Typically, two types of research thus become relevant here. Patient journey research tends to be framed by describing how individual patients interact with a condition and its treatment.” The kind of research helps to identify the relevant key stakeholders, their respective emotional experiences, and to map out the journey in the treatment continuum for HCP support and effective brand positioning.
Pathak also shared how the doctors’ decision-making process is elaborate and that they would not just stick to the guidelines. She said, “Though treatment decision is driven by guidelines, medical guidelines, a lot of other factors play; factors like efficacy, disease progression, patient requests, and key opinion leader recommendations have an impact on a doctor’s treatment decision”. Further, Pathak discussed the relevance for one to understand how the doctor views the brand and the representative’s role in changing the prescribing behavior.
Bridging gaps in disease awareness and management
Amitabh Mishra presented a KAP study conducted by his team, where they found a large majority of the consulting physicians (60%) did not associate diabetes with itch, hence only 10% accepted the fact that the two elements could co-exist. Mishra said ” 60% of consulting physicians thought there is no connection between diabetes and itch, only 10% doctors acknowledge that there is a coexistence of diabetes and itch, and 30% of doctors were not sure if there is a link” This finding helped in often developing a very focused Campaign which would help in addressing this gap on disease awareness and management
Insight No driven creative campaigns
Praful Akali brought on the stage two authenticated campaigns that had drawn upon his deep experience both on the client side and the other working for agencies on insight-driven creative campaigns. As he said, “Once we had the insight literally, the whole of the creative and communication literally wrote itself.” That is why he has cited two great examples of campaigns to value real insights in every stage of the creative process concerning the target audience thoughts and experiences.
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