Abstract
To know that we know what we know, and to know that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.
Nicolaus Copernicus
Copernicus’s quote is one that reminds me that true knowledge is rare and valuable. One of the mixed pleasures of working in an industry and market that is changing with dizzying rapidity is the requirement and opportunity to keep pace with a kaleidoscopic blizzard of new knowledge. Whether applications of old concepts in new contexts or wholly new developments that would have meant nothing a few years ago, I find that both executives and academics often struggle to keep their knowledge relevant and up-to-date. This issue of the Journal of Medical Marketing is a particularly strong example of that turbulence in our knowledge environment.
For example, Vandana Prajapati and Harish Dureja have provided a useful paper on Product Life-Cycle management. A concept that has its origin in the 1950s, it is one that is used in very different ways in pharmaceutical and medical technology industries. However, it remains very important, especially in a commercial environment in which shaping and extending the life cycle effectively can have very large financial implications. This article provides a broad overview of ideas about product life cycle management in pharmaceuticals. By pointing to essential practices at different stages, such as attention to compliance or prediction of licensing changes, it provides a good primer for new marketers and a stimulating challenge to more experienced managers.
Another change in our industry environment that is very different from that in which I grew up is the importance of emerging markets. When I worked as a product manager (admittedly, some time ago!), the issue of how the role might apply in, say, Bangladesh, would not even have occurred to us. And yet now the skill of product management in these markets with large populations but developing and very non-western infrastructure is of interest to many companies. I was therefore delighted to receive the paper from Nishat Chowdhury and Eva Rahman Kabir. Using a quantitative survey of the leading firms, they find that sales growth and promotional spend are well correlated but that the correlation is moderated by customer-based brand positioning. Obviously, this article will interest anyone with marketing responsibility in any developing market but I think it carries lessons more generalisable than that.
A trend in our market that is little discussed is the emergence of non-pharmaceutical and non-device approaches to treatment that either replace or complement existing products. Talking therapies in mental health areas is probably the best known example of this. The paper from Han Teng Weng, Ming Chuen Chuang, Shih Chung Chang, Ding Ming Wang and Ching-I Su is a fascinating example of such a novel, indirect approach to our market. They look at somatosensory games in physical therapy, something I had not encountered before. Using some rigorous quantitative analysis, they reveal the variations in attitudes of physical therapists to this approach. As well as the direct findings, I found the methodology of this article simulated lots of ideas about how to assess attitudes of health care professionals to new methods and therapies.
Returning now to slightly less esoteric ideas, the paper by James Ricks and Ismatilla Mardanov addresses a topic that many medical marketers in the primary care sector would like to understand better; the role of pharmacists in influencing patients. This study looks specifically at price-sensitive patients, an idea which is currently more applicable in some markets than other but which I expect to spread to other markets. It finds an interesting blend of influences between physicians, consumers and pharmacists that varies between over-the-counter and prescription drugs. Like all of the papers in this issue, this is a thoroughly engrossing piece of work with relevance to many medical marketers.
Of similarly broad relevance to most medical marketers is the issue of compliance to industry codes of conduct. Essential to the reputation of the industry, but increasingly difficult to balance practicality with rigour, such codes apply to almost everyone now. Henry Ko’s paper looks at this from an Australian perspective but I see much in his paper that is transferable to other regulatory and national contexts. I especially liked the way this article addresses problems like the burden on small companies and the way it looked to the future. Very useful for those who feel more constrained than supported by compliance issues.
And finally, no discussion of industry turbulence would be complete without mention of information technology. The issue addressed by Subramanian Bhuvaneashwar in his paper, cloud computing, seems to be evolving at frightening speed. He looks at the way cloud computing might create an infrastructure that enables disruptive innovation across the life sciences value chain. One of those papers whose timeliness makes it valuable as well as its content, this is a paper than most of us will learn from.
I hope you enjoy this issue’s varied, challenging and well-researched crop of papers.