BUILT FOR SPEED

Medical Marketing and Media, Jun 2008 by Parreño, Julian

Generating pre-launch marketing awareness is turbo-charging pharma product market share gains. Harte-Hanks SVP, pharmaceutical markets, Julian Parreño discusses how 'hypermarketing' has helped Teva Neuroscience drive rapid market penetration

Teva Neuroscience faced formidable challenges in advance of the anticipated FDA approval of its Parkinson's disease treatment Azilect. There was a desire to have a pre-launch readiness plan, including the development of a database populated with qualified patient and caregiver prospects where none existed.

Teva also faced competition from other drug manufacturers working on treatments for the same disease. To manage these concerns, a strategy was crafted to aggressively place salient non-branded, disease-specific messages with patient and caregiver populations in advance and in anticipation of FDA approval. Known as "hypermarketing," this approach is designed to achieve rapid consumer product trial and adoption by implementing creative, data-driven, non-branded strategies and tactics pre-launch.

An effective hypermarketing strategy serves to educate consumers and caregivers with non-branded multi-channel communications, making them aware of the potential benefits of a future treatment option ahead of its market availability. It's also an effective way to identify potential candidates for specific medications during the treatment's pre-launch stage, keeping them interested and engaged through disease-oriented communications and resources and, eventually, making candidates aware of the official availability of the brand after FDA approval is received.

Maximizing the lifetime value (LTV) of strategic brands has become increasingly critical in light of the slowdown in NME approvals, patent expiration of major brands, pricing pressures and a decline of in-office selling time. In an effort to "turbo charge" market share gains at launch, speed overall return on investment (ROI) on their marketing expenditures, and recoup research and development costs faster, rapid market penetration has become a key strategic objective. In recent years, the standard benchmark has been to approach the $1 billion-plus domestic sales threshold within three to five years post-launch. Past blockbusters, such as a Eli Lilly's Prozac, took several years to reach the $1 billion mark. Conversely, Pfizer's Lipitor reached the $1 billion mark within 18 months and it took Pfizer's Viagra and Lyrica just one year on the market to achieve blockbuster status.

Strategy for a changing marketplace

A series of studies conducted by Best Practices, LLC, which analyzed more than 20 blockbuster products managed by more than 15 companies, revealed that long-term strategic planning goes a long way toward shaping a brand's true market potential and increasing its optimum LTV. Such dramatic acceleration of product adoption is one manifestation of hypermarketing. A hypermarketing strategy begins in advance of traditional branded direct-to-consumer (DTC) and professional communications and requires a highly structured plan designed to: reach out to potential patients and caregivers meeting a certain profile; pre-heat the market for the eventual brand introduction; and educate physicians on the program (at launch) by creating an environment that facilitates dialogue and post-approval. By targeting consumers as well as caregivers, marketers are able to generate patient "pull" to complement physician "push." This approach creates interest within a therapeutic category in advance of official approval, as well as immediate conversations once the brand is approved. According to IMS Health data, a majority of physicians will prescribe a named drug if requested by a patient to treat a specific condition.

Probing patient needs

The pre-launch marketing program for Teva Neuroscience's Azilect was developed with the goal of learning more about how patients deal with the disorder and to identify specific unmet needs. Program design elements included these key deliverables:

* While the FDA reviewed the new drug application (NDA), the company built a database of potential patients and caregivers. The program utilized multiple response-generating tactics to gather data elements, among them direct mail surveys and nonbranded websites.

* Disparate customer data were integrated in real-time to obtain one view of each customer across two main communication channels: the web and direct mail.

* Analytics experts segmented the audience into three distinct prospect clusters-patients diagnosed by a physician, care givers and patients with undiagnosed symptoms. Further segmentation included severity of disease and length of illness.

* Using segmentation analysis, the brand team and its agency partners devised a plan for gathering comments and insight from prospective patients and caregivers, with the goal of ensuring relevant communications based on their stated channel preferences and corresponding segment.

* The team created five waves of direct mail, targeting individual segments and offering a survey seeking input from both patients and caregivers. The mailings included a $1 incentive check and an opportunity to request more disease-specific information, as well as daily living tips via a proprietary newsletter that served as a key, trust-building communication vehicle. A search engine media plan was crafted to aid those who preferred online channels for communicating. Completed surveys enhanced the value of the information contained in the database, ensuring subsequent use of collected responses once the eventual product launch was approved.