Biosimilars are an inevitable force in pharma. The introduction of biosimilars may be a major threat to the branded product. One of the challenges for biologics at the end of their patent protection is how to communicate the tangible and/or emotional benefits of the branded product in the face of assumed (and real) price differences with biosimilars. In today’s pharmaceutical industry, this communication has become a more and more important part of brand’s strategy to defend the competition from biosimilars. Even a delay of a few months for the uptake of biosimilar could have significant financial impact. For well-established brands, it also represents an opportunity to leverage brand equity to communicate to key stakeholders including physicians, patients and key influencers such as nurses and physician assistants. We utilized a case study to illustrate how we address this challenge to help brands develop counter-biosimilar messaging strategies.

1. 1
Using counter-biosimilar messaging to protect
your brand
Mike Mabey & Alex Zhu
SKIM: Decision Behavior Specialists

2. Branded biologics
are facing biosimilar
competition.
What should you do
differently?

3. What is counter-biosimilar
messaging?

4. Does CPG or Telecom face
similar challenges?
Taste and
heritage seekers
“for over 40 years
Breyers has been
bringing families
together.”

5. However, there are
significant differences
There is a
default option
The goal is
different
Impact of
switching
decision

6. The goal of counter-
biosimilar messaging
is to increase inertia.

7. Two message goals
Shift the
adoption curve
Buy time for next
gen replacement

8. Two research goals
Identify messages
that create inertia
Measure the
impact of inaction

9. Our thought
process in
addressing the
challenge.

10. The key to success is to isolate
the effect of the message
Increase the impact messages have on
prescribing decisions

11. Take into account the structure
and format of the message
Message
platform
Tagline
Overall
brand
story Claims
Structure

12. Are the standard tools still relevant
for this messaging research?
Conjoint
Clickable
Qual
Iteration
MaxDiff

13. Our case
study based
on a message
platform

14. Three steps
Hybrid
qual
Quantify
the message
preference
Identify key
drivers and
combo

15. Step 1:
Hybrid Qual
MaxDiff/
Conjoint
Ranking &
rating
Sorting

16. Step 2:
Trade-off exercise
MaxDiff to identify the
winning message on the
primary metrics
Looking into the
supporting metrics to evaluate
the messages

17. Step 3:
Identify drivers and message combo
Clickable exercise to identify
what works and what doesn’t
within the message
TURF analysis to identify the
diminishing point when adding
additional message

18. How would you
measure message
success?

19. Flip your thinking about the
metric end points
Not
prescribing
Waiting
longer
Risk of
switching
Increase
in hesitation
Why didn’t
hesitate
Credibility &
Believability
Reducing
early adopters
Size of non-
prescribers

20. Impact
The size of non-prescribers
is doubled
The average wait time
before adopting biosimilar
increases by 25%

21. How does this
apply to my
brand?

22. Perspective matters: the
conversation changes

23. Three key takeaways
Understand
your goals
Change your
perspective
Get the
metrics right

24. Contact us
Mike Mabey
VP Client Solutions Americas
Based in Atlanta
Alex Xiaogung Zhu
Manager
Based in New York
SKIM: Decision Behavior Specialists
skimgroup.com