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Healthcare: PwC Romania: Limiting interaction means reconsidering market strategy and sales force in pharmaceutical industry
Limiting interaction means reconsidering market strategy and sales force in pharmaceutical industry and the number of medical representatives could drop by 10% to 30%, according to a PwC Romania press release.
“Prior to six months ago most interactions between physicians and pharmaceutical companies were face to face and often involved trips of hundreds of kilometers. Social distancing and isolation measures imposed by Covid 19 pandemic changed they way things work, reducing traditional events and conferences, access to hospitals and direct contact with physicians. Therefore, pressure on sales of pharmaceutical companies has grown as they have to reconsider their sales force and the strategy of promoting and selling products by using digital interaction,” says an article written by Ruxandra Tarlescu, PwC Romania partner.
According to the analysis, one of the main consequences of limiting direct interaction with physicians will inevitably lead to reducing the force of medical representatives. According to the survey “Pharma companies' route to a Digitized go-to-market model” this reduction will be by 10%-30% on the average. Companies will be more or less affected, according to the portfolio they have.
Companies without a product portfolio used in treating Covid 19 or with a product portfolio recording significant drops in this period may reduce the force of medical representatives up to 30% in the following years. In exchange, the drop of companies that produce medicines and specialized therapies in demand in this period could be below the industry average.
As for the digital area, suppliers of medical assistance services have adopted large scale digital channels for interaction with patients during the emergency and alert states, a tendency which will continue in the future. Thus pharmaceutical companies must keep up with suppliers of medical assistance services so as not to lose their advantage on an intensely competitive market and a rapid increase and are recommended to redirect sales teams to digital activities, including investments in improving digital abilities for medical representatives.
Digitization will allow pharmaceutical companies to turn to account the way in which Covid 19 suddenly increased the use of digital channels by suppliers of medical services, such as online platforms with experts and platforms devoted to obtaining and spreading information. On the overall, these digital tendencies offer a huge market potential for pharmaceutical companies, on condition of building the right market strategy.
The author of the article says Covid 19 pandemic fundamentally changed the way pharmaceutical industry functions and in this context companies must be quick and innovative in order to adapt to the new reality.