STRADOO
Shaping the Market as Required

“When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.” - Haruki Murakami.

The world was pulled into the storm, COVID-19, and normalcy of life and business got disrupted across the globe in an unprecedented manner. Newer realities came forth regularly, and, for specific sectors, the pandemic accelerated a change that was already ongoing albeit at a slower pace. Pharmaceutical marketing was one of them.

Marketing teams of pharmaceutical organisations have been witnessing a change in their target groups. Today’s physicians are less accessible to “plain calls” of field teams, and during lockdown imposed by the governments across the world, the in-person access was briefly near to zero. COVID-19 therefore accelerated the need for a customised selection of media, formats and content towards each individual in the organisation’s target group to complement traditional channels. More importantly it highlighted the requirement for a muchhigher and quicker turnover in terms of new channels and formats “When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.” - Haruki Murakami.

development. Pharmaceutical organisations need to take proactive steps to market their products and claim a fair share of the billion-dollar growth that the industry is slated for. Numerous studies and insights predict a massive growth, with Fortune Business Insights’ noting that the global pharmaceuticals market was $1,230.2 billion in 2019 and is projected to reach $2,151.1 billion by 2027, exhibiting a 7% CAGR during the forecast period. Pharmaceutical organisations need to ensure that the market is shaped according to their newer drugs, and their existing products are performing better against the competition.

These are easier said than done. The competition is fierce, and the global and newer markets pose their challenges. Also, organisations have to put in enormous effort to keep track of these more unique markets and develop marketing plans accordingly. An alternate route is to call in for a pharmaceutical marketing and strategic consultancy services that can be a potent ally to tackle the competition. The external consultants must have an in-depth understanding of the pharmaceutical world and have enough experience launching drugs to markets as well as keeping up growth in challenging environments. Munich-originating stradoo can prove to be one such effective partner for all kinds of pharmaceutical organisations. “We believe in providing highly strategic advice by deploying small but very senior teams which work cooperatively with our clients,” explains Dr Urs C.H. Wiedemann, one of stradoo´s Managing Partners. “We combine an in-depth understanding of the industry with extensive experience in strategic questions and an exclusive focus on the life sciences industry.”

Strategies to Excel at Launch

Complete alignment between various teams of an organisation plays a vital role in developing products, and this synergy needs to be translated in marketing communications. However, within these teams each speaks a different ‘language’ and stradoo liaisons between them to understand each other to ultimately share a combined perspective. The company provides long-year expertise and can be an objective and external sparring partnerto its clients. And with experienced consultants on board, stradoo knows what it takes to launch a pharmaceutical product in the market by offering the right messages to the right target group.

We combine in-depth understanding of the industry, with extensive experience in strategic questions, and an exclusive focus on the life sciences industry

Through its Shape the Market strategy, stradoo helps organisations position their products and portfolio and derive an effective program to generate evidence and interact with the stakeholders to shape the environment for their products. stradoo starts with a thorough competitive analysis, where the company integrates all available data and evidence on the competition’s putative strategy. Information on scientific communication activities, clinical trial designs, and evidence generation activities of the competition helps delineating the client’s strategy, and key levers are identified that need to be strategically addressed.

stradoo devises a sophisticated program wherein targeting different patient populations and modifying the perception of differentiation are identified. “We devise comprehensive programs of activities from evidence generation to pure communication on the other end of the spectrum to make sure the clients’ product falls on the fertile ground,” informs Dr Wiedemann. How do they shape the market? Suppose there’s a patient population where the client knows to have the edge over the competition; strategies are designed to make the market recognise that patient population to find the ‘sweet spot’ for the client’s products. This methodology is also beneficial in co-positioning and portfolio positioning for the client to ensure that more than one product in a certain disease area obtains appropriate complementary positioning within the treatment paradigm. Long before launching it has to be assured that the treatment guidelines value the innovation the product is providing and payers have to be informed and tought about the value-add of such new treatment paradigm. That will take time, thus starting to work with KOLs and payors 2 years prior to launch is considered not too much. Proper positioning of a new product is paramount, and often existing experience in launching the product with maximum excellence is hampered by frictional energy loss within complex organizations. stradoo’s Launch Excellence Methodology has proved to be the key success factor in realising the drugs’ ultimate potential. Under Launch Excellence, stradoo makes sure that the client and their product is ready for the launch, and the market is prepared and easily accessible. This cross-functional strategy considers the regulatory aspects of the market, ensures the clinical development is on time and marketing, medical and commercial departments are aligned to determine the success of the launch.

Pharmaceutical organisations today usually have their own checklists as part of their launch readiness, but these checklists alone often are not sufficient. The organisation might have an item in the checklist of targeting and segmentation but would not have prepared the characterization of the patient population in detail. stradoo ensures that the client doesn’t overlook such details, preventing the product from coming to the market unprepared. Launch Excellence enables clients to stay focussed on only the things that matter, prioritise their work and reorient themselves for the launch.

Identifying Growth Opportunities

But what if an organisation has stayed focussed, prioritised their work, and reoriented themselves and is still witnessing a laggard performance? stradoo’s Accelerator methodology helps such organisations in identifying growth opportunities.

“According to our experience, the problem in these situations with established products often lies in the combination of execution performance, targeting and segmentation and marketing material & messages at the same time,” explains Dr Wiedemann.

Under Accelerator methodology, stradoo asks questions to address the pitfalls or the shortcomings within these three areas and provides the strategic guidelines. stradoo will then be with the client to translate the guidelines into concrete activities and test, drive and modify the strategic guidance according to the feasibility in the field. Recently, a client approached stradoo because of their laggard performance with one of their well-established drugs. There was not a lot of growth potential found in better targeting and segmentation those customers who already prescribed the client’s product. The marketing message was not resonating with target customers equally. stradoo developed a sophisticated segmentation based on prescribing behaviour categorising the physicians, which allowed the client to identify those positions based on feedback from the field force and market data. The field force had customised messages as per the physician’s therapeutic approach. stradoo was able to initiate additional growth, and the client was so satisfied that stradoo was re-engaged over a period of another four years to continue with similar projects.

In yet another case, a company with $1.5 billion worth of annual sales in a market was on the verge of substantially fragmenting and offering many more different therapeutic options. stradoo was consulted to understand how the new therapeutic option would affect, what kind of areas in the market they would occupy and where the competitive threats would originate from. Here stradoo put to use their Shape of Market methodology. “We devised the program along three clear strategic levers, which were staggered over time,” explains Dr Wiedemann. In the first year, the focus was to maximise the initiation of the patients on the product. The second and third year was dedicated to avoid patients switching out and keep the patients on the product. stradoo devised a concrete program and retrospectively was able to see where this program was implemented. The impact of the competition could not be abolished, but it was significantly delayed for several years. And the client gained an edge for a couple of years over the competition even though the competitive product had a more attractive profile.

stradoo – and their Managing Partners working together for more than 15 years in that market now – has been able to deliver impactful results for more significant pharmaceutical organisations. This experience has enabled stradoo to develop strong strategies that help shape the market as per the clients’ requirements and manage challenging times while maximizing opportunities.