During my four years in N Company, I only served one product of E-drug, and I was fortunate to participate in witnessing the process of heart failure market from barren to vigorous development. From the first innovative product E-drug came out only 20 years ago, and then SGLT-2 inhibitors from various players poured into the track.
Speaking of Mkt, due to the particularity of domestic industry policies and regulations, the marketing function of the pharmaceutical industry is greatly limited, far from real marketing, and there are few learning materials that can guide newcomers. Based on this, the author came up with the idea of sorting out and sharing past successful experiences. Criticism and correction are welcome for shortcomings and prejudices.
Mr. Dong once mentioned eight "marketing principles" and seven "tools", and introduced the classic marketing cases of Borrelia Borrelia, which prompted the author to study this theoretical system seriously. Today, I use the theoretical framework of eight "marketing principles" to resume the development of drug E for patients with dilated cardiomyopathy.
Background introduction:
The indication of E-drug is heart failure patients (HFrEF) with reduced ejection fraction according to new york II-IV cardiac function classification. When E drug was just approved in China, the original sales team also sold another product, L drug, paving the way for the listing of E drug, opening the heart failure market for the first time and encountering a fiasco. Previous cardiovascular products, such as beta blockers, have also tried to expand the heart failure market, but there is no successful precedent.
Why did the previous products fail in the heart failure market? The main reason is that doctors and patients lack understanding of heart failure, and the diagnosis and treatment of heart failure diseases are not standardized. Heart failure is the terminal stage of all cardiovascular diseases, and it is a syndrome. However, many doctors mainly treat the primary disease in the process of diagnosis and treatment, and rarely mention that patients are accompanied by heart failure. In addition, many patients will panic when they see the word "failure", so many doctors will not diagnose it as "heart failure" or "heart failure" and use a bigger concept "cardiac insufficiency" instead. This situation directly leads to delegates and doctors not getting patients with heart failure.
Dilated cardiomyopathy:
Usually, young men, mostly around 40 years old, are often the backbone of the family, so they have a strong willingness to treat. At the time of diagnosis, most patients were seriously ill and had good compliance with doctors. 80% of these patients are accompanied by heart failure.
So the author put forward a bold idea to develop the patient type of "patients with dilated cardiomyopathy and heart failure" and let delegates find patients with dilated cardiomyopathy and heart failure!
Principle # 1 Know the customer's point of view.
In this process, ask yourself a few questions. What is the market you define? Who is the target customer? What is the current prescription behavior of customers? Why is there such a prescription behavior?
Definition market: Dilated cardiomyopathy accounts for 20% of all patients with heart failure. Although the proportion is not high, 80% of patients with dilated cardiomyopathy are also patients with heart failure.
Target customers: cardiologists who are good at cardiomyopathy.
Prescription behavior of target customers: The diagnosis of "dilated cardiomyopathy" will be clearly written in the medical records by doctors, but it is usually only the symptomatic treatment of heart failure.
Why is there such a prescription behavior? There are no particularly good drugs and means to treat dilated cardiomyopathy, and most patients are accompanied by heart failure.
Principle # 2 Predict and outsmart competitors, seize opportunities, and win by surprise.
What are your competitors doing and why?
From the point of view of marketers, this market segment can be described as a blue ocean. Before the emergence of drug E, there was no specific medicine for dilated cardiomyopathy, and there was no competition from other players. As long as electronic medicine enters this field, it is leading. Using electronic drugs can improve symptoms and patients' quality of life in the short term, reduce enlarged heart in the long term, and reduce the risk of cardiovascular death and readmission rate. Surprise is a piece of cake.
From the point of view of patients and their families, they are seriously ill, young and willing to treat. E medicine is not covered by medical insurance, and the problem of higher price is no longer the main concern of doctors and patients.
From the doctor's point of view, once there are new drugs and solutions, they are willing to try.
Any strategy depends on the activity. Therefore, we cooperated with Professor L, a well-known cardiologist in China, and successfully wrote E-medicine into the first China Cardiomyopathy Guide, which was widely publicized by the media and followed up by lectures.
Because there are no other players in this field, the strategies and activities of competing products are omitted here, but this part is very important. These principles are as follows:
1. Predict the reaction of competitors to our strategy, and then prepare contingency plans.
2. When determining the target market, formulating promotional information/activities and allocating resources, we need to consider the positioning of competitors.
3. Work closely with key customers to establish mutually beneficial relations, thus weakening the influence of competitors.
Principle # 3 Focus on selected audiences and behaviors Focus on selected customer groups and customer behaviors.
The selected customer group: experts who are good at cardiomyopathy treatment in cardiovascular department, and then can be extended to experts who are good at cardiovascular drug treatment (as opposed to PCI and electrophysiological experts).
Customer behavior: mentioned earlier.
In order to promote the marketing of electronic drugs in this field, we have found Professor L, a top expert in this field in China. Professor L is an objective and neutral scholar who can influence the whole cardiovascular field. If we shake Professor L, we can shake the whole industry.
What I did in the early days was the most routine of Mkt. I visited Professor L, passed on product information, and followed him in sales, so that he could have experience in e-drug prescription, evaluate his product concept, and promote it as a product to speakers and advocates in large-scale activities. With the accumulation of Professor L's ideas and medication experience, he is willing to further promote E-drug to a higher level of recommendation, so he has a guide recommendation and a lecture tour in the South.
Principle # 4 defines the unique value of a product to a specific audience and the unique value of a product to a specific customer.
As mentioned above, the unique value of this product lies in the following points for the selected customers:
The unique dual action mechanism of 1 E drug can inhibit RAAS system, regulate natriuretic peptide system and improve myocardial remodeling (dilated cardiomyopathy is characterized by early cardiac enlargement).
2.e drugs can make patients see immediate effects and improve the symptoms of the disease (edema, dyspnea, fatigue, etc. ) in a short time, improve the quality of life of patients.
3. Drug E can reduce the risk of cardiovascular death, reduce the hospitalization rate (heart failure patients spend an average of 2.4 times a year at a cost of 65,438+100000 yuan), and reduce the disease burden.
4. Once suffering from dilated cardiomyopathy, it is usually a middle-aged man in a family. Because he can't continue to work normally, it will cause a huge blow to the income of the whole family. E medicine can help patients return to normal work and life.
5. Many patients with dilated cardiomyopathy treated with electronic drugs are in sharp contrast with their serious condition when they were hospitalized. Some patients have even been told to wait for a heart transplant, and after taking electronic drugs, patients can even return to normal work and life. Many doctors have received pennants and thank-you letters from patients, and doctors who treat patients with dilated cardiomyopathy through electronic medicine can find a long-lost sense of accomplishment.
Principle # 5 Through the life cycle planning and orderly growth of products, we can plan the orderly growth of products throughout the life cycle.
In fact, the author mentioned earlier that heart failure is a syndrome in the final stage of all cardiovascular diseases, and all cardiovascular diseases can lead to heart failure. Therefore, it is an interesting topic to plan the orderly growth of electronic drugs from the whole life cycle. There are many dimensions according to the disease field, product characteristics and the distribution of cardiovascular specialties. As E-drug is still in the primary stage of its life cycle, it is about to face the competition from biosimilars, so it is inconvenient for the author to comment too much.
As for what has happened, I want to emphasize that the market of dilated cardiomyopathy with heart failure with little market potential (20% potential) contributed 55% of the annual business by the year I left my job. The key point of success is that since doctors don't diagnose "heart failure" or "heart failure", it means that patients with heart failure can't be found, so we can save the country and find patients with dilated cardiomyopathy by bypassing the obstacle of "I will go if the mountain doesn't come", because the diagnosis will be clearly written in the medical record, and 4/5 patients are patients with heart failure, so the difficulty of finding patients with heart failure will be much reduced.
After the great success of patients with dilated cardiomyopathy and heart failure, the author often reflects on whether what he has done has had a negative impact on the whole life cycle of drug E. After all, this patient type belongs to a relatively marginal segment in the heart failure market, and its potential is not great. Will it make the customer only use E medicine to change the patient type and drive her to a small segment? Were all the decisions made at that time too reckless? But the answer after thinking is obviously not, for two reasons:
1 There is no direct competition. E medicine, and no other player has invaded this blue ocean.
2.？ Through the successful promotion of this sub-field, many patients have been brought back to life, cardiovascular doctors have recognized the magical efficacy of E-drug, and at the same time, doctors' understanding of heart failure diseases has been strengthened, and then E-drug has been applied to more patients with heart failure.
Principle # 6: Shaping the customer's perception and shaping the customer's viewpoint.
In marketing, the author believes that the highest level of marketing is to occupy the mental space of consumers. As mentioned in the book Story Economics, successful marketing can make consumers think of your products first in a certain situation.
Due to the uniqueness of products and fields, I won't introduce the E-drug for patients with dilated cardiomyopathy and heart failure. However, in terms of how to shape the customer's point of view, we can learn and improve the following principles:
1. Shaping customers' views on competitive products.
2. Develop promotional information and activities according to different groups of people, so as to emphasize the psychological benefits brought by products that can attract customers.
3. Create promotional information and activities to improve customer satisfaction as much as possible according to the characteristics of products.
4. For those who can influence the target market, formulate auxiliary promotional information and activities.
5. Ensure that the promotional information and activities for all customers are the overall strategy that contributes to the product.
Principle # 7: Ensure that the implementation is effective, consistent and integrated, so as to ensure that the implementation is effective, consistent and coordinated.
Activity execution is the basis of marketing strategy, and the effectiveness of activities is the key to convey product information. In Professor L's Central Cardiology Conference from 2065438 to April 2008, the author received strong cooperation from the public relations department, and publicized the conference on various portals, local TV stations in Wuhan and automobile media, focusing on improving people's understanding of dilated cardiomyopathy, and recommended Dr. E in the guide. 20 18 At the end of May, 12 southern tour lectures were held nationwide, which was later increased to 18 at the strong request of sales colleagues. And every meeting is highly cooperated by the regional market and sales colleagues, and the target doctors are invited accurately to successfully deliver the product information.
In this principle, effective communication and cross-departmental cooperation are also the key to ensure success. I am fortunate to get the strong support of N+ 1 and N+2, and the cooperation of PR, regional marketing department and various sales regions.
Principle # 8 Track the results and reevaluate the progress of decision monitoring and reevaluate the decision.
As mentioned above, from May to the end of 2065438, a total of 18 lectures were held. It is a shame to evaluate activities and strategies at different points in time. At that time, every lecture tour was crowded with hcp. After the meeting, Professor L will share his experience in using E-drug, and the average time for answering questions is over 1 hour. Various regions requested to increase the number of meetings, and the boss made a tripartite survey. In some regions, patient types and even output accounted for 70-80%, and the author did not do much work. What should be corrected:
1. Different progress indicators should be set for implementing plans and formulating strategies, so as to effectively evaluate achievements.
2. Establish criteria and trigger points that can prompt you to reevaluate your plan.
3. Always take the initiative to consult customers, solicit the opinions of people responsible for communicating with customers, challenge traditional thinking, put forward innovative ideas, and be willing to follow established decisions or consider other better schemes.
On the occasion of the second anniversary of the listing of E-drug, I would like to thank Boss Y who led me into Mkt, all the comrades in the product group of E-drug for their companionship and support, and thank more than 600 sales pioneers of E-drug for their recognition. Come on, electronic drugs, I believe that one day there will be a lot of electronic drugs in the classic prescription drug marketing case!