The branded pharmaceutical industry in the UK is experiencing the most challenging business environment for years. A reduction in the flow of new product launches, an increasingly tough regulatory environment, more and more pharmacoeconomic hurdles to overcome and then a cataclysmic drop in sales at patent expiry puts even greater pressure on the need to achieve peak sales as rapidly as possible.

Coupled with this the ongoing reforms in the NHS have led to an explosion of new customers all with varying needs and degrees of influence over the potential sales of branded pharmaceuticals.

For years the doctor has been the influencer, gatekeeper, prescriber and key decision maker and therefore the focus of all sales and marketing activities. Now we find this straightforward sales channel has fragmented into a myriad of stakeholders who are gradually gaining a larger decision making role in the choice of pharmaceutical prescribed:

1. PCTs and Hospital Trusts are setting local priorities and agreeing on joint local formularies
2. Nurses and Pharmacists are gaining Supplementary Prescribing Rights
3. Well-informed patients are playing a bigger part in the choice of medication that is prescribed for them

In addition the segmentation and targeting carried out by pharmaceutical companies often leads to many companies attempting to call on the same sub-set of prescribers which has just led to access becoming more difficult in an already crowded market.

Until recently shear weight of numbers and share of voice would win, which has led directly to the 40% increase in sales-force numbers over the last 5 years. But this model has now peaked out and reduced return on investment cannot justify further increases in “traditional” sales-force size.

This new more complex, multi-faceted customer base requires a different, more bespoke approach with different messages to be communicated to different customers through new and varied skill sets and core competencies.

PharmaPoint provides commercially skilled Healthcare Professionals who understand the environment many of our customers are operating in. More importantly they speak the same language – nothing is more powerful than effective, persuasive communication between well informed peers.