One role of pharmaceutical research companies is to provide information about their medicines to health care professionals. This interaction between pharmaceutical representatives and health care professionals is often referred to as “marketing and promotion.”A number of tools and media are available for marketing communications in pharmaceuticals. Many avenues like detailing and samples have been overused and scant attention paid to other equally, if not more effective avenues.
• Detail aids and materials – Traditionally, detailing via sales representatives has been the most often used avenue for medical communication. Nowadays, with increasing difficulty in arranging a face-to-face meetings with doctors, many companies are looking at using e-detailing in place of live detailing through sales rep. This is because a shift to e-detailing erases all logistics problems associated with physical presence of a sales rep at the doctor’s clinic, fully armed with a large number of visual aids.
• Samples - This is a very important and often frowned upon tool. Samples are effective ways of demonstrating a drugs’ effectiveness and its importance cannot be underestimated.
• Speaker programs – Though such speaker programs can be arranged through a live speaker program or technologically enabled via web casts, studies have shown more effectiveness for live speaker programs.
• Journal advertising and Medical publications – An ethical dilemma to many. I shall comment more on this in one of my later posts.
• Detail aids and materials – Traditionally, detailing via sales representatives has been the most often used avenue for medical communication. Nowadays, with increasing difficulty in arranging a face-to-face meetings with doctors, many companies are looking at using e-detailing in place of live detailing through sales rep. This is because a shift to e-detailing erases all logistics problems associated with physical presence of a sales rep at the doctor’s clinic, fully armed with a large number of visual aids.
• Samples - This is a very important and often frowned upon tool. Samples are effective ways of demonstrating a drugs’ effectiveness and its importance cannot be underestimated.
• Speaker programs – Though such speaker programs can be arranged through a live speaker program or technologically enabled via web casts, studies have shown more effectiveness for live speaker programs.
• Journal advertising and Medical publications – An ethical dilemma to many. I shall comment more on this in one of my later posts.
• Medical education and Patient education programs
• DTC advertising – With about 18 to 20 % of Indian drug market consisting of OTC (Over-the-counter) drugs, its a mystery what is being done in this arena. A few new advertisements on television do bring about a whiff of change, though.
