1. F o c u s i n g o n
S p e c i a l t y M a r k e t s
30 HealthCare Distributor  April/May 2012
A
rmed with exciting advancements in
research tools and technologies, inno-
vative manufacturers are endeavoring
to swiftly bring a much-needed cache of new
high-touch products to market. According to
the 2010 Specialty Pharmaceuticals report
published by the Center for Healthcare Supply
Chain Research, approximately 50 percent of
medications pending approval are specialty-
oriented. The financial investment required for
development and approvals is high. Industry
analysts estimate that the cost can range from
$50 million into the hundreds of millions.
That pre-market expense can weigh heavily
upon product teams tasked with creating a
flawless long-term strategy for success.
The push for biosimilars increases the
pressure. Recent FDA guidelines outline
a path for bringing biosimilars to the US
market. Lifecycle plans for innovator prod-
ucts must account for such events. As the
cost of healthcare rises, greater emphasis is
placed upon delivering generic options for
broad primary care medications. Industry
watchers have predicted that within the next
five years up to 90 percent of all dispensed
drugs will be generic.
In addition, manufacturers need to
carefully consider their target markets.
With some specialty and orphan drugs
appealing to a narrow population of con-
sumers, it’s critical that product managers
understand and prepare their products
for their very unique customer set. High-
touch services such as physician train-
ing and customer educational outreach
can add significantly to marketing costs.
Smaller, highly-trained consultative sales
Transforming Specialty
Pharmaceutical Lifecycle
Planning Through Data-
Driven Decision Making
By Dianne Pilon
Director, Marketing, ValueCentric, LLC
professionals must also be deployed to
ensure a meaningful connection between
manufacturers and their customers.
Specialty pharmaceutical manufac-
turers can benefit greatly from clear intel-
ligence about their products’ performance.
Tightly focused and dedicated in scope,
specialty innovators manage a product
lifecycle that differs from those managed
by broadline manufacturers. A successful
launch, sustainment, and sunset strategy is
hallmarked by nuance and detail, simply
due to its nature. Serving a smaller, highly
distinct population of patients, there is no
room for error — and missed opportunities
can yield huge losses.
The need for insights into business
operations has taken on new emphasis
in the healthcare world. Companies
are rethinking the way they shape their
decisions, striving to develop sculpted,
methodical plans based upon quantitative
information to produce calculable results.
Predictive decision-making has become
the foundation of a solid business model.
In their 2011 study, “Strength
in Numbers: How Does Data-
Driven Decisionmaking Affect Firm
Performance?”, researchers from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
and the University of Pennsylvania stud-
ied the value behind data collection and
use. Their results were persuasive. Of the
179 large companies studied, they dis-
covered trends which indicated that those
companies that adopted “data-driven
decision making” recognized 5 to 6 per-
cent higher productivity than those which
based their decisions primarily upon intu-
ition or experience.
Pinpointing the proper mix of price,
promotion, and placement has always
been a classic concern for any brand man-
ager, but for specialty innovators those
concerns are amplified. Understanding
the market in real-time and down to the
actual store level can save millions of
dollars in sales and marketing costs, es-
pecially at such a time that both resources
are being operationally streamlined and
economically managed to yield higher
results for less financial outlay.
Having clear, actionable, real-time data
can be the driver behind making profit-
able, informed decisions that create lasting
successful results for the life of a product.
Converting information into actionable
results can be eased through reliable, easy-
to-interpret reports. Those reports must,
like the manufacturers who need them,
be high-touch in quality; they should be
customizable, allowing sales, brand, and
finance teams the ability to view different
collections of information applicable to the
current stage in their product lifecycle or
their particular business need.
The specialty pharmaceutical indus-
try is, indeed, experiencing a transforma-
tion in nearly every respect. Operational
excellence can play a dramatic role in
easing that transition and preparing for
a bright future in delivering useful, criti-
cally necessary products to the consumers
who need them most. Controlling costs
while optimizing resources is a delicate
balance, made more logical and function-
ally smart through proactive planning and
data-driven decision making.
For more information, visit
www.ValueCentric.com.
ValueCentric headquarters in Orchard Park, New York.
Photo courtesy Martin Timm.