Scaling AI in Healthcare & Pharma | Senior Executive & Advisor | Board Member | Healthtech - Pharma | former VP Digital @ Novartis
5 Key Insights on #HealthTech and Big Pharma Partnerships - Part XI - Structures & Incentives (cont'd) 12. #Pharma Sales Forces Are Often Not Very Effective at Launching Digital Solutions For new HCP-focused #healthtech solutions, we’ve made major progress on many fronts. We now have paths to reimbursement in several markets in Europe and the US and have clearer guidance on regulatory and evidence requirements. So what is missing? One of the most important steps: actual demand generation. Getting HCPs to initiate solutions like a #DTx / #DIGA / #PECAN is still the biggest hurdle for health tech companies. Pharma knows this well; it has been deploying large sales forces to individually visit HCPs to generate scripts for their molecules. So leveraging the same pharma sales forces on the same targets they are already calling on seems like a logical step, and has been tried several times now, including at my former employer. Where are the issues? - Selling a digital solution remains much harder. The sales rep not only needs to convince the doctor of the benefits of the product as they do for a drug, but they also usually need to educate the HCP on why a digital solution is a good idea in the first place. Not all sales reps are digitally native and understand it themselves. - Furthermore, educating on the benefits of a digital solution is much more time-consuming. Given the limited time a rep has with a physician, and the need to promote at least 2, if not 3 products, there is often not enough time. - Finally, and perhaps most importantly, many sales reps are driven largely by sales incentives. If you don’t get the incentive plan right for the rep to care about your product, they will focus on easier wins to get their bonus. Make sure you have some form of influence on the rep incentive setting when you negotiate your partnership. I’m not saying that using a pharma sales force will never be successful, but it needs to be prepared properly. One option is to closely embed the digital product with an actual drug the pharma company is promoting, ensuring incentives for reps are aligned. Or, you could find a pharma partner with an “old” product to promote, where sales reps are desperate for something new and exciting to talk about to even get the HCPs' interest, and the digital solution is used as a door opener. In any case, always focus on ensuring contractually that the pharma company will be providing the right amount of sales rep training and education, and ensure you have some influence on the sales rep incentive scheme.
CEO of Capptoo Life Science and CXO at CX Advisory - Leading a team of +100 People that help you to drive CX Strategies, Innovation and Results | 25+ Years in Pharma, Healthcare, and FMCG | CX, AI and VoC practitioner
2moInsightful, thanks for sharing Christian Hein