Before we start this topic let me throw some questions to you
1. What do you sell as a Pharmaceutical Marketer?
2. Who is the face of the company in pharmaceutical marketing?
3. Who is your customer in Pharmaceutical Marketing?
4. Is Pharmaceutical marketing different from FMCG?
To answer my first question, as a Pharmaceutical Marketer you sell “Medicine”.
The face of any Pharmaceutical company in the world is it’s, “Sales Force” or “Medical Representatives” as we know them.
The customer in Pharmaceutical marketing is not a patient who goes to buy a medicine when he/she is ill, but in fact it’s the “Physician” or “Doctor” who prescribes the medicine to his/her patients.
Pharmaceutical marketing is different ball game, it is different from FMCG
§ As the product that you are selling is a “Medicine” & not a chocolate or a shampoo, as a marketer you should know in and out about the product, because misuse or wrong use of the product can cause lot of serious adverse effects
§ Because of this reason, unlike FMCG, patients (end users) don’t pick their medicines on their own, they visit a doctor who diagnoses their illness and then prescribes them suitable medicine, which a patient buys form a medical store
§ Therefore the customer in Pharmaceutical world is DOCTOR & not a PATIENT, this is the major differentiator of Pharmaceutical Marketing & FMCG
§ The products involved here are high science Medicines, therefore lot of scientific communication is involved, which makes the communication more serious and less entertaining
§ There are specific regulatory bodies which govern the usage of these medicines in specific indications or illnesses eg. US FDA, Local FDAs etc.
§ A company cannot influence the usage of a medicine in any indication they like, they need to follow the guidelines coming from the regulatory bodies
§ Lot of money is invested by the Pharmaceutical companies to come up with one single medicine, while the usage is restricted to few indications only, which makes the market for the product skewed, and hence less profitable
§ Therefore this industry works on the “PATENT” model. Which means if a company comes up with a new molecule, that company will have the exclusivity of Price & no competition for a specific number of years after registration in that particular market
§ As the number of new molecules coming in the market are reducing, many GENERIC brands are coming in the market
§ GENERIC brands are the copy of same innovator molecules launched by other companies when the originator brand looses it’s exclusivity
§ This increases competition and hence the same medicine which was expensive for patients due to the exclusivity, is now available at affordable price due to the generic competition
§ Of late as the research pipelines of many pharmaceutical giants have dried up, they have decided to come into the business of “BRANDED GENERICS”
The industry is not as simple as described above. There are various aspects like Research, Sourcing, Manufacturing, Business development, Advertising, Product Management, Distribution channel, Pharmaceutical Retail, Pharmaceutical Selling etc. which are very difficult to cover under one topic.
Please watch this space for more updates on Pharmaceutical Business.
