A Shot in the Arm - Jason Burke on Health and Life Sciences

I’ve been an avid runner since…well lets not get into exactly how long but lets just say its been a while. And since I’ve logged tens of thousands of miles in my career, like most serious runners, I’ve had my share of running injuries. As I sat down to write this blog post and pondered the many, many challenges facing the Life Sciences industry, I recalled one of my toughest running injuries and my old physical therapist. Somehow, the two situations seemed related.

I had an injury that just wasn’t responding to any of the tried and true methods that I had used for years. And yet, I was reluctant to change anything I was doing. After all, I had been a successful runner (ran the NYC Marathon and dozens of 10k races) for over a decade and had dealt with every injury that came down the pike. My methods were simple…rest as little as possible, sprinkle in an aspirin or two, and maybe some beer. Then get back out there! But this injury seemed bigger, more relentless. So I did the unthinkable. For the first time, I sought professional help in the form of a physical therapist. From the start, he knew that I was going to be a tough patient. I was reluctant to undergo the treatment which (unlike aspirin and beer) was painful at times and required me to change my approach. So he hit me with this sage advice that I’ve never forgotten. “…If not this then what, if not now then when?…”

Somehow, when thinking about today’s Life Sciences industry and the sea change it must undergo, I recalled those words. So much has been written and said about the challenges facing the industry in 2010 and beyond that it’s really not productive to recount them all. It’s safe to say that the industry recognizes the hurdles…the patent cliff, the steady drum beat of opposition to its marketing practices, the demand for doctor and patient privacy, the list goes on. This blog post won’t spend much time on all that. Having done so, we are past it. No, today let’s focus on the response (the “treatment”), for that is what will truly separate the winners and also-rans in this emerging life sciences “order”.

I recently attended the PharmaForce conference in Philadelphia, PA. The overriding theme, as it is every year, was change. And as it has been every year for well over a decade, the rising influence of Managed Care was on every speakers lips. Of course that is still top of mind. But this year’s conference offered something new…the genuine acknowledgement that the physician selling model, which for decades overlooked and even ignored their preferences, is irreparably broken (injured??). At least one speaker lamented the fact that doctors complained for years about mirrored sales forces…and life sciences companies responded by bombarding them with redundant reps and messages. While this was done in the interest of “share of voice”, in many ways it was the equivalent of “whoever screams loudest, or last, wins”.

Whether the industry finally paid attention to doctor push-back, whether it was the global financial melt-down, or even some other combination of factors, its hard to say. What is clear is that the era of sales rep armies blanketing healthcare providers is over. The new order is precision, needs based messaging and consulting, and making non-personal promotion more “personal”. Yes, all Life Sciences companies want to get to this new order “yesterday”. But how will they do it? Can they accept the sometimes painful process of reinvention and move forward? Clearly, relying on older sales and marketing data analysis approaches won’t do it. Assessing doctor needs by grouping them in buckets of 5 or 10 based on past prescribing habits is not only imprecise, but does nothing to assess current, much less future thinking on therapies.

No, Life Sciences companies must “treat” themselves with something different and that difference is intelligence of a higher order. Intelligence that can only come from predictive analytics. With predictive analytics, Life Sciences companies can proactively address many of their most thorny issues:

• Which physicians are more likely to respond favorably to which portfolio of products?
• In which order should messages be delivered to meet a physician’s needs and to make every interaction a “10” for the physician?
• Are we making the best use of a physician’s time with our promotion strategy? Would we be better served to limit our “face time” with the physician for certain therapies in favor of other channels?
• And if we do use those other channels, can we make the message and content appealing enough to gain a slice of what little time the physician has left in an incredibly busy work day?

Yes, change of any kind can be daunting….whether its finding a new way to deal with an injury or adapting to a new way of selling and marketing. If not this, then what? if not now then when?  The gun has sounded and the competition is on. Which Life Sciences companies will seek the right treatment, make the necessary changes to their “regimen” and go to the leaders pack?  Which companies will stick with the old and struggle from the opening lap? As with my old running injuries, the choice is clear and the time to act is now.