How custom promotional tracking helped a leading biotech firm to modify its strategy for impact

Problem:

The leading biopharma firm faced a fiercely competitive market with established incumbents when launching its oncology product. Despite successfully promoting its efficacy on a distinct sub-type of population and encouraging appropriate usage among oncologists, sales started plateauing after a few quarters. With a very competitive landscape, the client wanted to identify how to increase usage by identifying changes their sales force needed to make.

Insights:

ZoomRx conducted a custom Promotional Effectiveness Tracking (PET) study to assess the effectiveness of the client's sales force in driving MD usage of their product. ZoomRx research findings were that:

  1. The sales force struggled with competitive dynamics. Client’s sales reps were being heard and seen less often in the in-person setting than competitors.
  2. The reps were primarily delivering monologues instead of having dialogues with MDs.
  3. The reps spent too much time discussing non-product information resulting in the product's unique selling proposition being associated with a competitor.
  4. Failure to close conversations by asking MDs to prescribe the product.

These factors contributed to a stagnation in MDs' intention to increase usage of the product post-interaction with sales reps, leading to a plateau in usage.

Solution:

ZoomRx recommended the client train their sales force to specifically focus on the following:

  1. Increase interaction frequency to better react to MD questions, and thus have more dialogues than monologues.
  2. Spend a higher proportion of time during interactions discussing product information enabling reps to deliver USP messages.
  3. Improve rep closing, specifically asking MDs to prescribe. Work with MDs to identify the right patient types, especially the unique patient type relevant to the client product.

Impact:

After implementing ZoomRx's recommendations with their sales strategy, the client experienced positive effects in the subsequent quarters. The improvements were evident across all measures:

  1. Better association (+20%) of the unique patient type with the client product
  2. Usage of the client product increased (+25%), across lines of therapy and the specific patient type.

Interested in learning more? Get in touch with our experts at info@zoomrx.com