Commercial Analytics and It’s Defining Role in Pharma Marketing

Pharma companies are working hard to build effective patient access programs and implement an
effective commercial strategy around it. Expiring patents and competitive pressure is a real
challenge and companies need to explore opportunities with the help of the vast amounts of data
they own. Big Data and Analytics capabilities are helping companies define that strategy and execute
a plan, which will help them succeed.
Pharmaceutical Commercial Analytics Past, Present and Future
Commercial Analytics Past

 Rely on prescription data to assess the value of a brand.

 Rely on drug distribution data for segmentation and targeting.
 Introduce new drugs with marginal incremental clinical benefits.
 Segmenting physicians based on their utilization of the brand
 Provide data analysis a week or two after data received.
 Unable to assess which expense area, sales, marketing, market access, is driving profitability
and actual sales.
Commercial Analytics Present

 Through data analytics able to better align commercial efforts with physician AND patient
needs. Analytics can be leveraged to identify the ideal patient for a given therapy and which
HCP’s have the greatest concentration of those patients in their practice.
 Still need access to all the new data sources particularly from payers and providers.
 Patient satisfaction is being measured through feedback mechanisms in CRM programs and
shared with pharmacies to enhance the patient experience. That same data can be used by
payers to validate formulary placement and HCP’s to improve quality of care.
 Real data showing the product works better or differently than the clinical trials showed is
enabling commercial teams to show payers the innovation will make them money, giving the
provider a better clinical outcome and clearly stating a customer-specific case for the drug.
 Advanced technology is speeding up the collection and evaluation of data.
 Increased use of multi-channels like email, websites and apps in addition to traditional face-
to-face sales reps is giving marketers a better understanding of their customers and how to
optimize communication channels. Customizing both the message and the channel.
Commercial Analytics Future

 The increasing role of the patient in healthcare choice and delivery will transition data
analytics from physician behavior prediction to patient predictive archetypes.
 Social media patient journey mapping and patient touchpoints will allow a manufacturer to
gauge fairly accurately what patients are saying about the brand within hours of approval.
 Sales reps, from social media data capture, will be able to alert HCP’s about questions their
patients will be looking for answers to. Marketers will use social media data to adjust their
educational and promotional materials.
 The marketplace will continue to change so dramatically that the best product will not make
it to market without insightful, in-depth data analytics.
 The light being shed on predicting physician and patient behavior is only as valuable as the
decisions put into place from that information. Acting on this flood of data will be the key to
success for manufacturers.

Advanced Analytics: A Remedy for Commercial Success in Pharma

Analytics has been at the core of sales force strategy for a while now. Most of the top pharma
companies have been mining data to get direction on sales targets, sales force size, structure and
activity planning.

At the core of all commercial insights, however, is identifying the source of business. Twenty-five
years ago, pharma companies focused their analysis on identifying the right physicians to engage
with, based on the volume of sales or prescriptions a doctor generated. Things are no longer so
straightforward for them. Regulations have been driving structural changes in the healthcare market
since the turn of the decade, making selling and marketing pharmaceuticals a lot more challenging,
even as operating margins have come under pressure.

Current challenges faced by the sales and marketing function in the pharmaceutical industry include:

 Loss of exclusivity of blockbuster drugs around the beginning of this decade (patent cliff reached
its peak in 2012) has led to a sizeable drop in the profitability of major pharma companies. This
has enforced a stringent cost control mindset within the companies

 Globally, there has been a focus on healthcare cost containment, with many governments
encouraging the prescription of generic drugs. This has put pressure on pharma companies to
prove the efficacy of their drugs with data and analyses. Decision-making has shifted out of the
hands of physicians too, with policymakers and the payers (government as well as private)
practically mandating what a doctor can prescribe
 Acess to physicians is on the decline, largely due to the consolidation among providers
influenced by healthcare reforms such as the Affordable Care Act in the U.S. This has meant that
the purchasing of drugs is centralized for a hospital chain or health system

 The need of physicians to meet with sales representatives has gone down as digital technologies
give them access to drug-related information that was earlier sourced primarily from the
representatives. Patients too are more knowledgeable today due to healthcare-focused websites
and social media forums. They now have a say in the discussions on the course of treatment
with care providers

 While the prescription of personalized medicines and specialty drugs is on the rise, there is no
single syndicated source that aggregates the data from these areas comprehensively. Companies
cannot understand the source of business accurately as they need to combine the data from
multiple sources such as syndicated sources, payer network and specialty pharmacy hubs.
Additionally, these sources do not follow the same standard for data aggregation

 As a result of these challenges, pharma companies are looking at earning more with less, and the
evolution of analytical technologies has given pharma companies the capability to do just that.

 Advanced analytics tools can integrate and process millions of records of structured and
unstructured data including physician notes, clinical trial data, medical transcripts, claims,
patient records, and even social media posts, faster and more cost effectively. The deep and
often unique insights generated allow pharma companies to develop more precise and
differentiated sales force strategies in the areas of distribution, market opportunities per
therapy area and innovative value generation, to name a few.

How advanced, intelligent analytics can drive pharma’s commercial success, given the changes and
challenges shaping sales and marketing in the industry?

 Better Insights, Greater Benefits : At the heart of the sales and marketing challenge for pharma
is the need for the commercial strategy to become more aligned with the true buyer forces in
the market today. The rise of newer influencers has meant that sales representatives need to
engage with decision makers beyond physicians. This is bringing into focus the Key Account
Manager (KAM) role that targets health systems, Integrated Delivery Networks (IDNs) and
payers
 Customer Segmentation and Targeting : Not all physicians who write more prescriptions are of
importance to pharma companies. Customer segmentation and targeting algorithms can help
identify physicians who serve patients fitting the company’s relevant patient profile. They can
identify, with greater accuracy, doctors who are likely to switch from, to, or continue with the
drug
 Managed Market Analysis: The majority of drugs sold in developed markets are channeled
through payers and managed care organizations. Payer analysis can offer pharma companies
important insights on brand affinity, predicted revenue, cost to benefit assessment of a drug,
and so on. These insights can inform KAMs of the appropriate pricing and reimbursement
strategies to be negotiated with a payer
 Patient Data Analysis : Advanced analytics run on terabytes of patient data (electronic medical
records or diagnostic data) with the help of machine-learning techniques can deliver unique
 insights into a drug’s effectiveness. For example, the identification of a drug being preferred
because it does not have averse reactions with certain chronic illness medications can help the
sales representative position it strongly to the relevant specialists
 Enabling Patient Wellness : In order to establish trust and win brand awareness in the minds of
increasingly aware patients, pharma companies need to go beyond just selling the product.
Engaging with patients through health advocacy or wellness programs helps win customer
mindshare. It also increases adherence to medication leading to higher sales
 Social Media Analytics : Patients are the final consumers of pharma products, albeit through
recommendations by providers. Social media analysis is thus important to understand the
sentiment of this group better – not just the extent of positive or negative comments, but why
they are upbeat or have negative sentiments
 Infrastructure Before Insights : To truly achieve a transformation of its commercial strategies,
the new pharma commercial environment requires lots of data — structured (syndicated
prescription and patient data, CRM data) and unstructured (electronic medical records, labs and
diagnostic data or social networking data). Handling and processing these different kinds of data
requires a big data management framework with built-in capabilities for advanced analytics

Commercial Analytics in Pharma

Advanced analytics in the pharmaceutical and life sciences industry – including tools such as artificial
intelligence, machine learning and data mining – has the potential to transform the pharma
commercial function. Process automation and data-driven predictive insights have the ability to
dramatically change how executives make strategic decisions and manage financial performance
across all commercial areas.

Assembling the right mix of technology, data, and skills can lead to stronger revenue growth and
improved operational performance in the commercial function

How an oncology company could use advanced analytics to boost commercial opportunities for a
second-line treatment for cancer patients
Portfolio of Commercial Analytics

Mazars’ services can generate highly valuable insights through a comprehensive set of Commercial
Analytics that can help position consumer goods companies for high performance. Following is a
portfolio of commercial analytics for consumer goods companies

• Shopper analytics. Shopper analytics help move manufacturers from mass to micro segmentation,
allowing them to identify more accurately what high-value consumers buy, their intent, and how to
increase their “share of basket.” Conversely, insights derived from such analytics can guide both
product develop

• Brand marketing analytics. Brand marketing analytics can help organizations understand products
that are most relevant to their customers, become more efficient in how they manage their
investments, focus their marketing campaigns, manage brand equity, and ultimately drive consumer
awareness and influence customer preferences.

• Digital analytics. Just as with traditional campaigns, analysis of digital marketing and sales
initiatives, as well as consumer generated content, can help companies find the right mix of
promotional and informative content to engage customers.

• Portfolio, assortment and space analytics. Determining the optimal portfolio mix, based on an
understanding of shopper needs, is critical. This optimization includes the withdrawal of products
that no longer meet customers’ needs and the development of products addressing gaps.

• Price and promotion analytics. These analytics can help manufacturers become much more
sophisticated in managing pricing across the value chain. Insights generated from this analysis can
help influence shelf-based pricing, as well as prices for distributors and retailers. Such analytics can
also help consumer goods companies optimize their promotional outlay—a massive cost for most
companies.

• Channel management analytics. Analytics in the area of channel management can help companies
identify those channel partners that provide the best return on manufacturers’ investments. While a
strong personal relationship with channel partners is always positive, it may not always translate
into additional sales. Analytics can provide the evidence to recalibrate a unified customer strategy.

• Retail execution analytics. In the area of retail execution, analytics can help companies identify and
consistently carry out the highest value in-store activities, and also promote efficient and reliable
collection of retail performance data. A flexible toolset of analytics can enable manufacturers and
retailers to optimize merchandising activity.