Correspondence: Andree K. Bates, Eularis, Northumberland Avenue, Trafalgar Square, London WC2N 5BW, UK. Tel: +44 (0)20 7403 5378 or +44 (0)20 7403 5381; Fax: +44 (0)7900 2086; e-mail: abates@eularis.com

¹is Managing Director of Eularis, a company that provides mathematical tools and processes for measuring the sales impact of specific sales and marketing mix components and to show what needs to change to measurably impact market share. Andree's career has encompassed academic, clinical and pharmaceutical positions internationally. She has gained wide recognition within the international healthcare industry for ROI, analytics and marketing effectiveness measures in pharmaceutical marketing, and is the author of many publications in journals, as well as being the author of several reports, and chapters in books, on this topic.

Received 4 September 2008; Revised 4 September 2008.

Abstract

Pharmaceutical companies in the US and Europe are recognising the various benefits of using pre-launch named patient programmes (NPPs) as an essential component of their global market access strategy to optimise product launches, produce real-life forecasting data and deliver early access to patients. This paper presents results of the first study to assess the financial impact of using a pre-launch NPP on a product launch. A multivariate analysis demonstrated that implementing pre-launch NPPs had a significant effect on the cash market share of a drug within the first year of launch. Specifically, in a particular drug market, there was a 1.362 times higher odds of spending $1 on a drug that participated in an NPP compared with a drug that did not use NPP. The paper also discusses the various regulatory and practical challenges companies face when implementing NPPs across Europe, and the increasing use of specialist management organisations to coordinate these tailored European programmes.