MARKET ANALYSIS

Marketing Methodologies — Ethnography: The good, the bad and the ugly

Michael Gibbons and Donna Kelly explore the application of ethnography for medical marketing. Qualitative research methodologies are becoming increasingly important as healthcare becomes more networked and the needs, perceptions and aspiration of pharmaceutical industry stakeholders become more complex.

Marketing Masterclass — Brand domination vs brand decline

Brands have a lifecycle, and Giles Moss provides insight into the interaction between a brand and the evolving market. Invaluable advice and practical strategic approaches are provided not only to stem the inevitable decline of a brand but also to rejuvenate brands to ensure a stronger market position.

Marketing Strategy — Product lifecycle management (LCM) — Marketing strategies for the pharmaceutical industry

Dennis Z. Kvesic reviews the toolbox of lifecycle management strategies available to pharmaceutical marketers. Laser sharp focus is required at each phase of the product lifecycle to ensure that optimal marketing ROI is obtained.

Marketing Perspectives — Hospital marketing should focus on physicians: Lessons from Germany

How does one market medical products and services in the face of rapidly changing health economic, regulatory, political and other forces? Bjoern Bloching, Harald F. Stock and Jochen Scheel provide practical insight on developing customer focus and communicating a clear customer-value case in the German market. The hospital has become the nexus for many of the factors reshaping the healthcare system, and lessons learnt from hospital physician marketing are eminently applicable in the general healthcare sector.

Digital Marketing — Legal and regulatory risk associated with Web 2.0 adoption by pharmaceutical companies

Fadi M. Alkhateeb, Kevin A. Clauson, Nile M. Khanfar and David A. Latif review the current set of digital marketing tools available to the medical marketer including blogs, podcasts, wikis and social networking communities. Advances in the internet make it possible to move beyond a simple one-way information provision model to active interaction between healthcare and pharmaceutical companies and their customers. This customer base is becoming predominantly the final consumer or patient. For pharmaceutical companies, Web 2.0 presents both opportunity and risk. Legal and regulatory issues are exacerbated by the speed of interaction, the open nature of the platforms of communication and the current lack of in-house expertise on how to best manage digital communication with the pharmaceutical industry customer and its stakeholder base.

Marketing Briefs — Implementing a pre-launch named patient programme — Evidence of increased market share

Pre-launch named patient programmes (NPP) have become an essential component of pharmaceutical companies global market access strategies, and Andree Bates provides important insight into the benefit case and challenges of NPP. This paper provides data on the financial impact of implementing an NPP programme and the impact on product uptake and stakeholder relations.

PAPERS

Patient satisfaction measurement for in-hospital services: A pilot study in Greece

Constantinos-Vasilios Priporas, Christina Laspa and Irene Kamenidou provide insight on patient perception of quality in Greek hospitals. They found that insurance status and a range of demographic factors are associated with a more positive view of service quality.

Impact of information and communication technologies on sales representative internal and external relationships — A study of the UK pharmaceutical sector

Khurram Sharif studied the use of IT and communication systems by pharmaceutical sales representatives and the impact of this on organisational and customer relationships. This work highlights the importance of ensuring that sales and marketing technologies are customer-centric.

ResearchWatch

Brian Smith discusses papers on new product development, product innovation, entering the emerging markets, imitation in the branded drug marketing and clusters in the biotechnology sector.