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New Challenges of the Pharmaceutical Marketplace and the Salesperson’s Role A fast paced changing environment is causing the pharmaceutical industry to implement many new strategies. What these changes will mean to the pharmaceutical salesperson and their role, is our topic of discussion. We hope that this article will help the representatives to understand why and how to work with these new strategies. The job of the pharmaceutical salesperson is becoming more and more difficult. Along with a rapidly changing workplace, we also face a new marketing environment that is placing pressure on the industry to justify promotional expenses. This will necessitate modifying our advertising and promotion strategies. These changes require a new approach to selling pharmaceuticals, an approach that focuses on service and education for both the patient and the healthcare professional. Not only is the salesperson having to address areas such as therapeutic advantages, pharmacoeconomic data, and disease management, but these have to be discussed in new settings, such as managed care facilities, and with new “customers,” such as consumers (patients) who are more informed and educated than ever before. The government is also becoming a more important customer everyday. All of these factors will have a profound effect on the job of the salesperson. First, increased emphasis will be placed on promotion in the form of patient education materials, medical education, clinical meetings, and symposia. The focus will be on helping medical professionals in their practices and making their jobs easier, otherwise known as value-added selling. Examples of this are as simple as providing a physician with a clinical reprint, journal article, or patient education DVD; it may be as complicated as facilitating the physician’s attendance at a medical symposium or actually presenting educational material yourself to a group of healthcare professionals. Regardless of the medium, the salesperson remains the most effective means of promoting pharmaceuticals to physicians. Second, features and benefits of products will no longer suffice in terms of promotion. Since growth through price is rapidly becoming a thing of the past, our discussions will have to focus on the clear therapeutic advantages of our products and pharmacoeconomic data that demonstrates favorable cost-benefit ratios. It is not difficult to demonstrate that drug therapy is more economical than hospitalization, surgery, and other procedures. Oral contraceptives prevent unwanted pregnancies; antihypertensives lower blood pressure and the risk of cardiovascular complications. Antibiotics treat infections; antidepressants can help patients avoid the tragedy of long-term institutionalization. The pharmaceutical salesperson has an impressive story to tell, and it gains strength in today’s economic climate. Third, the salesperson will become more involved in the physician’s practice by providing educational materials that will help in disease management. While disease management itself is not the job of the salesperson, we can provide physicians with the information necessary to prescribe the proper medication for the proper patient at the proper time. necessary It is not only appropriate, but also for the salesperson to help the physician identify the patients who are the best candidates for our products. A fourth challenge to the salesperson is the managed care market. Whether we are dealing with clinics owned by private insurance companies or governmental social programs, we will need to address all of the issues of economics, cost-benefit ratios, medical education, and quality of life that we have addressed historically in other settings. This may necessitate a different emphasis on the message, but the message will stay essentially the same: drug therapy is frequently the most cost effective treatment for many patients. A fifth issue for the pharmaceutical salesperson is the consumer, or today’s patient. Patients are better educated than ever before, demonstrating more awareness of and interest in pharmaceutical products, even asking physicians for specific products by name. The Internet, direct to consumer advertising, etc. have all increased patient awareness. This adds another layer of complication to the salesperson’s job, because we must now instruct physicians and other healthcare professionals on the importance of patient counseling in reference to the use of our products. We also need to provide more patient education materials. Since physicians are no longer the only people who counsel patients concerning pharmaceuticals and their use, we must now add the nurse, physician assistant and the pharmacist to our promotional efforts in regard to patient education. Finally, it is inescapable that governments are assuming a larger and larger role in healthcare, and we must be prepared to develop a working relationship with the government bodies. The only way to foster this working relationship is through good communication. We need to make the government aware of the value of our products in disease management; the cost-benefit ratio of our products compared to hospitalization, surgery, and other medical procedures; and the role our products play in enhancing quality of life for the patient. The salesperson may become a key player in this working relationship by helping government agencies understand that the best healthcare system is one where government and industry work together to ensure the finest patient care possible. Emphasis on value-added service, more and better educational materials and accurate communication in old and new settings, pharmaceutical sales will increasingly depend on the effective interpersonal skills of a well-trained sales force. The salesperson will continue to play a key role – perhaps the key role in the changing environment of the pharmaceutical marketplace.