In our post “What we believe about pharma branding”, we gave a brief overview of the history of branding and the adoption of the FMCG branding model by big pharma where value is driven by the product.
Within FMCG the unique selling proposition (USP) is at the heart of mass market advertising but in the sales and marketing of pharmaceuticals, this thinking neglects the value offered by the corporation, or to put it in another way – the importance of the business relationship between pharma and health care professionals (HCPs).
We argued that the corporate brand has a significant role to play in creating value for all stakeholders including prescribers.
Market segmentation can allow for the reality that some HCP’s derive little value from the product brand and vice versa.
HIGHLY SPECIALISED MARKETS
The above approach arguably still holds in today’s ‘Primary Care’ markets but what happens in specialised (or niche) markets?
Let’s look Australia’s Section 100 (s100) market.
The Highly Specialised Drugs (HSD) Program provides access to specialised Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) medicines for the treatment of chronic conditions which, because of their clinical use and other special features, have restrictions on where they can be prescribed and supplied. In most cases, medical practitioners are required to undertake specific training or be affiliated with a specialised hospital unit to prescribe these medicines.1
In s100 markets, it is not uncommon to see 80% sales driven by 40 – 80 customers (at both the hospital and individual prescriber level). It is also common to see companies work with HCP’s in setting up treatment centres. In other words what we have is a small number of prescribers with a strong relationship with the corporate brand.
As the number of key prescribers reduces, it becomes possible (and even desirable) to segment by individual customer – not at all unlike a ‘customer-centric’ sales approach.
VALUE IN A HIGHLY SPECIALISED (NICHE) MARKET
This nimble approach with an understanding of the importance of the corporate brand – rather than a focus on product differences – is the key differentiator between companies that succeed or fail in these highly specialised markets.
THE FUTURE OF BRANDING
With advancing genetic research, highly personalised medicines are on the horizon. It is even foreseeable that products will be developed for individual patients, leading to a hyper-fragmented market. Clearly this will radically change the way pharma thinks about branding. The one constant in this rapidly evolving business environment will be the corporate brand.
1. Source: https://www.pbs.gov.au/info/browse/section-100/s100-highly-specialised-drugs