Now prescribing decisions are dominated by third parties and targets. If your product is not endorsed or on the formulary, then there is little point sending in reps. Smart companies are developing highly targeted strategies, focusing their  efforts on doctors’ practices where they have favourable positioning.  Some are even adopting micromarketing techniques to target their messages very specifically to a highly localised segment."  Indeed, the last five years have seen a wave of investment in sophisticated customer relationship management tools.

“Half of patients who ask for a brand name drug are given it.”

As access to customers decreases, pharmaceutical companies are looking at new methods of getting their message across. One such channel is provided by the internet and associated technologies.

"The e-channel is becoming an important promotional strand, although not yet a stand-alone channel in its own right," says Kerridge. "We have partnered with a well-known medical portal to access their large population of doctors. Knowing that you have to hit a doctor 6-8 times with a similar message to get some form of action, a combination of physical and e-reps can be a winning one."

Duncan Morris, managing director of contract sales company AmDel Services and an ex-Commercial Director of Danish company Lundbeck Pharmaceuticals, believes we can learn from the lessons of history.

"What is happening in Europe now happened in the US 10 years ago. The insurance companies decided to take control of healthcare and set up purchasing units and many pharmaceutical companies responded by doing away with their traditional jobbing reps, replacing them with super reps who could sell the drug onto formularies. "

"Many companies downsized their sales forces but it didn’t take them long to realise that once a drug is on formulary you need reps to make doctors prescribe the products. Super reps can create availability but you need the traditional sales reps to create pull through," he says.

The success of the pharmaceutical industry in the future will rest fully upon each company’s ability to adapt. Some companies will move fast and make radical changes, while the more conservative will rest on their tried-and-tested wait and see approach.

Pfizer and Takeda, for example, are two companies that fall firmly in the former camp. They have both restructured their sales forces to focus on the new prescribing bodies, identifying the decision-makers and their influencers. Takeda has gone the whole hog, ditching its reps team who sold into family doctors entirely in favour of 35 regional account directors who focus on the prescribing bodies and other influencers.

As healthcare systems continue to change, pulled one way by governmental tinkering and another by demands for cost-control, the customers of pharmaceutical products are changing. In this already remarkable industry, new scenarios are appearing that require innovative and adaptive thinking. It is sink or swim time for pharma.

Primary Care Organisation Survey
How well are the major pharmaceutical companies account managing PCOs in the UK? VIA is about to embark on its 4th annual survey based on indepth intervews with 100 senior managers in PCOs. The report allows pharma companies to get a good understanding of how their individual company is perceived by this important target group and how their account management team perform compared to competitors and near competitors. It also gives a unique insight into PCO managers wider concerns and interests.