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Follow on Google News |  What Does the Future Hold for Medical Reps?As reliable information is getting more accessible, how will medical representation evolve? Alcimed, an Innovation and New Business consulting firm shares it view.
By: Alcimed Over the past ten years, medical reps have been suffered a twofold blow: the profession has been largely criticized by public authorities in the way they promote drugs they have seen their numbers decrease by up to 25% between 2005 and 2010 in some countries, notably in Europe. A profession undergoing game-changing mutations Historically, the business model of pharma companies was solely based on the medical rep / prescribing physician axis. Products were promoted by one medical rep in charge of one asset or one range of assets, in one-on-one, face-to-face interactions with healthcare professionals. The offer had the product as a starting point and its value was rooted in the clinical data demonstrating efficacy. In the past decade, three major factors have changed how medicinal products are promoted: Pharma companies’ offer has evolved, and the transition from a blockbuster approach to a specialty product one implies the ability for medical reps to manage an ever growing number of subtleties. The sales rep cannot rely exclusively on the star brand to ensure physician’s approval anymore. This is even truer as the decreasing number of sales rep cannot meet physicians’ increasing expectations in terms of information. Payers increase the pressure to curb rising healthcare costs, which modifies the balance of power between the different stakeholders. Prescribers, who used to be all powerful in the choice of treatment, are losing their edge in favor of payers. Medicinal products used to be assessed on their clinical benefits only. They now have to undergo thorough comparative health economic evaluations more and more frequently, including after being granted market authorization approval. With the Internet now being within everyone’s reach, doctors and patients alike can access a large quantity of medical information becoming more and more reliable without the help of the medical rep. As a consequence, pharma players are losing the monopoly of quality medical information. Patients are becoming empowered actors of their management. The simple fact that 83% of Internet users worldwide look for medical information online, mostly for treatments they have been prescribed or for self-diagnosis, shows the extent of this trend. And the pace is not slowing down with smartphones: What solutions will reinvent the profession of medical reps? For pharma players these mutations mean rethinking the role of medical reps. Alcimed considers that the starting point is to lower the number of points of contact between physicians and reps of a given company, which would allow them to move from product-centric approach to a customer-centric one. Medical reps should be in charge of a portfolio of assets or indications and address diverse stakeholder profiles: payers, hospital management, department directors, etc. as well as prescribers. Such an evolution implies that medical reps need to be able to conduct a multichannel communication campaign using all the tools available in the digital world. These medical reps 2.0 will keep on meeting their recipients face-to-face but will also have to manage a virtual community in order to lower the number of face-to-face meetings with physicians, in favor of the other stakeholders. Switching from a product-centric approach to a customer-centric approach means that the role of the medical rep will not be limited to pushing information anymore. Medical reps’ sales pitch should now go beyond the pill and offer physicians more comprehensive support in their day-to-day management of patients. In this regard Alcimed helps pharma companies imagine an exclusive range of services offered to prescribers (specific to the client’s portfolio and needs). Tomorrow’s medical rep profile is a connected individual able to holistically understand the stakes their recipients have to face while being sensitive to health-economic realities. Reps will have to be able to move away from the product to get closer to their clients: this will only be possible if they can find ways to support them and partner with prescribers and more largely with the healthcare system as a whole (e.g. improving the efficiency of disease management in a given indication, sharing analyses of the company’s marketing/medical teams, etc.). Such mutations need to be embraced by all stakeholders in the field as a source of value for the entire healthcare system provided by a high value added profession. About Alcimed Alcimed (http://www.alcimed.com/ End
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