What is Market Research?
Market research and marketing research are often confused and used interchangeably.
Market Research: Determination and assessment of qualitative and quantitative dimensions of a market
Marketing Research: Analysis of the effects of various marketing activities of a company or its competitors.
How market research helps in Pharma marketing & sales?
Environmental scanning:
– Physicians
– Pharmacists
– Pharmacies
– Hospitals
- Data gathering and analysis
- Influence of unique aspects of the pharmaceutical market on market research:
– Known list of entities
– Knowledge-based decisions
– Similarities in education and thinking (professionalization)
– Availability of records for transactional activity
- Significant use of outside vendors for market research
– Syndicated services
– Custom services
Questions Answered by Market Research
Strategic Level:
– What diseases or product areas should be considered for long-term investment?
– Short-term?
– Market size or potential?
– Availability and utilization of therapies?
– Next logical steps in therapy?
– Potential market segments to be exploited:
- Disease conditions (e.g., migraine sufferers)
- Dosing preferences (inhalants vs. injections vs. patches)
– Prevalence of disorder?
– Shared conditions?
– Potential development partners?
– Potential acquisitions?
- Clinical trial Planning:
– Seasonality
– Regionality
– Specialty
– Premarketing Planning:
– What physician specialties are important in a given therapy or diagnosis?
– What patient characteristics are important?
– Who are our competitors in this market?
– How do our competitors promote their product?
– Are there unsatisfied portions of the market?
– How do physicians perceive a proposed product?
Questions Answered by Market Research
Post-marketing Monitoring:
– Adverse events
– Product sales
– Patient information (medical history)
This can be critical in product defense situations! Example: Pfizer’s defense of Viagra when suits were filed alleging an increased risk of stroke.
Types of Market Research
Retail Pharmacy Purchases:
- Measures the “inflow” of products from the manufacturer to the pharmacy
- OTC
- Prescription drugs
- Indirect (through wholesalers)
- Direct purchases from manufacturers
Hospital Purchases:
Growth of pharmaceutical purchases by hospitals has greatly exceeded purchases from pharmacies on a proportional basis. In many communities, the hospital has become more important in routine care.
- Measures the “inflow” of products from the manufacturer to the hospital
- OTC
- Prescription drugs
- Indirect (through wholesalers)
- Direct purchases from manufacturers
Warehouse Withdrawals
Can be valuable in dealing with questions of individual territory performance and potential or different selling techniques
- Measures the “outflow” of products from the warehouse to all purchasers
– OTC
– Prescription drugs)
- Does not reflect direct purchases from manufacturers
- Provides ability to analyze small segments of the marketplace such as zip code or territories
Retail Pharmacy Prescriptions
- Measures the “outflow” of prescription drugs from the pharmacy to consumers
- Most sensitive indicator of prescription product performance (factual)
- Reflects mindset of prescribers and consumer demand
- Best indicator of marketing or promotional effort effectiveness
- Data available at national and sub-national levels
Physician Panels
- Specialized research services to identify patient product usage along specific variables:
– Diagnosis
– Patient characteristics
– Location of visit
– Drugs used
– Action desired from drugs used
- Tracking of new prescriptions over time and monitors changes in doctor prescribing habits
Retail Pharmacy Sales
- Historically used for non-prescription pharmaceuticals
- Data typically collected for products of interest
- Collect unit and dollar information at the package size level
- Main use is to obtain prescription counts by product
- Used for pricing analysis and cross-tabulation analysis using data warehouses
Promotional Media
- Monitoring of detailing visits to physicians by sales representatives
- Monitoring of journal advertising
- Monitoring of direct mail advertising
- Physician sampling
Stages of Market research
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