e-Marketing and e-Commerce in the Pharmaceutical Business
If chemical e-Marketing is slowly but gaining the momentum, then Pharmaceutical is still in the infancy. Even more, I haven’t seen so many mistakes and “wrong movements” anywhere else in B2B sector than in pharma. Unfortunately many companies with serious intents are taking completely wrong approach in employing or subcontracting cross-industry e-Marketing professionals to handle this very complicated and specific field. There are very few real specialists in this area and I have heard stories from them that when attempting to apply for a permanent or a consultant position within the industry, they were faced on the interview by the people with NO idea of pharma-specific problems whatsoever. People often not knowing even the most common abbreviations used in pharma and API business like DMF, USP, BP, etc. As a result in many cases they took on board a 'new media' specialists and made an emphasis on user experiences, WEB 2, interactivity, and other secondary issues. This approach creates a system of Pharmaceutical e-Marketing similar to food or beauty products, meanwhile the industry is very much different. So the main advice would be: if getting on board pharma / API specialist then make sure that he knows the industry itself not just general B2B(C) e-Marketing.
Meanwhile let discuss what pharma e-Marketing is and how it should be organised. Many aspects of it are similar to chemicals but with number of differences. So we are not going to repeat what we have just said in the chemical section but it is worth mentioning that a Dual Star strategy is fully adjustable to the Pharmaceutical industry but requires some extra considerations.
Pharmaceutical market is going through the turbulent times. In fact the only thing protecting it from “invasion” of very advanced R&D companies from Asia and Far East is large number of regulations and bylaws. At the same time the regulations in the developing markets are less strict so the cheap generic alternatives are becoming highly competitive. One of the few weapons left in the hands of “Brands” is a media campaign labelling generics as unsafe. If in some cases they do have a ground, then in many others they are completely untrue. For example some simple drugs produced in Far East are made at the same factory both for generic and brand options. Branded pharma products carry one of the oddest things ever seen on the market, when packaging costs more than content. This is an example of a week point where generics are hitting hard especially in the developing markets.
As a result of it, the 'new media' subcontractors are taking on board not pharma specialists but PR professionals with “new media” background in order not to market the product in a common way but to create an extensive promotion subsystem making products even more expensive (to absorb the costs). This gives generics more space to operate and requires fresh promotional effort from brands therefore creating a never-ending circle.
Another common mistake made by non-specialist new media people is misunderstanding of pharma process itself and the stages involved. For instance, in many cases pharmaceutical company interested to market their new development is approaching the new-media company which immediately starts a campaign of a “new drug”, meanwhile in reality it is an API with completely different ways of introducing and promoting as a product. Therefore let us define the actual “Pharmaceutical e-Marketing” which is in reality not a single concept and it is divided into three categories
- End user (including doctors and hospitals). This is actually something which is commonly called “Pharma e-Marketing” but in fact it is only a tip of an iceberg. At this point the most mistakes are being made by mixing it up with the rest of the pharmaceutical industry. It is based mostly on providing reports, scientific data, etc. to the specialists in order to start the movement of the drug. Type of the e-Marketing strategy used – mostly new media.
- Bulk drugs. This sector is not visible to the end users and mostly involves established drugs like antibiotics, antipyretic, etc. The competition is becoming fierce but mostly left outside the scope of e-Marketing. Type of e-Marketing used – anything from catalogue on the web to the chemical portals.
- API. New and probably most interesting area of pharma e-Marketing. APIs are pure B2B as they are distributed between the pharma companies only. There are very few specialists in this area but due to a tremendous progress made in this field in countries like India or China the industry is about to gain a serious momentum. Type of e-Marketing used – highly individual, depends on the skills of the specialist involved.
Overall there are two contradicting tendencies in the section 1 and 2 from the above list. In-flow of brand promotion and out-flow of generic products information targeting mostly developing markets. In fact there is a draw situation at the moment as none of them wins. Well, almost a draw, as generics have an edge over the brands and if this advantage is used correctly then the gap would be wider in a short time. There are well known techniques in “branding” including a “smear campaign” method included it the anti-generic strategy. But at the same time the possibilities of e-Marketing for generics are truly unlimited as they are not tied by the same standard that branding professionals use almost everywhere from pharma to washing-up liquids and cereals. Therefore if someone taps-in into this very pharma-specific strategy then, even with thousand times less investment than brands, it is possible to achieve much better results.
The third section is mostly a terra incognita for many e-Commerce specialists simply because it carries to much industry-specific and scientific information. At the same time due to a large number of high quality R&D laboratories in Asia and Far East their production together with know-how sometimes is ahead of the Western competition. So presenting their products to the other pharma and R&D companies is becoming a high-priority task. For this the “Dual Star” system fits perfectly as it was developed with a similar type of information in mind. Therefore a simple adjustment of “content” makes a Dual Star framework an ideal tool for API e-Marketing. You can reed more about an “open part” of the Dual Star framework in the chemical e-Commerce article.
February 2008
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