How and why pharmaceutical companies need to prescribe Information Therapy

1. Decoding the Relation:
Pharma & Info Therapy
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Information Therapy
If pharma companies create actionable patient education
tools for doctors to use in their practices, doctors will be
happy to use these
By: Dr. Aniruddha Malpani
The PwC 2013 report, “India
Pharma Inc – Changing
Landscape of the Indian
pharma industry” has
eloquently documented the
challenges Indian pharma
today faces. What can pharma
companies do to cope with the
current slowdown in growth
rate and sales?
Selling to doctors has always
been the heart and soul of
the pharma industry business
model. While MRs form the
backbone of the pharma sales
force, they are no longer as
effective as they used to be.
Most doctors disrespect MRs
today. They are only seen to
be a source of freebies – and
are made to wait for hours on
end. Today’s pharma industry
sales force is disgruntled and
unhappy, as shown by their
high attrition rates.
The good news is that
it’s easy to win back the
doctor’s respect – pharma
companies just need to start
thinking about what they can
do to improve the doctor’s
productivity and efficiency.
What doctors want
What do doctors want? The
answer is simple – they want
more patients. A pharma
company which can help
doctors to do this is going to
find that doctors are receptive.
Doctors are realising that
they need to invest in educating
their patients in order to be
able to increase their practice
and improve their profitability.
If pharma companies create
actionable patient education
tools for doctors to use in their
practices, doctors will be happy
to use these – creating a winHealth Biz India December 2013 55

2. Information Therapy
There’s plenty of
technology which
the pharma sector
can use to connect
directly with their
patients
win situation where everyone
benefits – patients, doctors and
the pharma company.
The pharma industry
should invest in improving the
doctor-patient relationship
by harnessing the power of
technology and social media.
Doctors want their patients
to be as satisfied as possible
with their care, which is why
they want to have informed
and quality interactions
with their patients. But in
real life, this often does not
happen, primarily because
doctors find it difficult to
spend enough time with
their patients, no matter how
good their intentions may be.
To compound the problem,
patients are also often not
health literate. One solution
to make the doctor more
efficient and the patient more
aware about his condition is
by investing in information
therapy, which the doctor can
then prescribe to his patients.
Acting as a catalyst
Advances in digital technology
and the opening of new online
56 Health Biz India December 2013
communication channels
means there are now lots of
opportunities to improve the
doctor-patient relationship
significantly. Sadly, most
individual doctors don’t have
either the expertise or the
resources to tap these. This
is a huge opportunity for the
pharma companies, which can
act as a catalyst to improve the
doctor-patient relationship.
Enlightened pharma
companies which do this stand
to gain lot of goodwill and
loyalty of both doctors and
patients. There are many ways
of doing this.
They can create customised,
personalised patient education
DVDs. Doctors can gift these
to their patients at the end of
the consultation, so they can
review them at home. This
can help doctors to enhance
their brand and create patient
loyalty.
These DVDs can be played
in the waiting room TV. This
will ensure that the patient
becomes better informed about
his illness and its treatment –
and he will not be so unhappy
when the doctor is running
late. In high end clinics, this
content can also be played on
tablets, which the receptionist
can offer to patients while they
are waiting.
Create personalised websites
for doctors. Doctors today
have realised that a majority
of their patients are online.
They understand the value
a personal website can offer
them, but don’t know how
to go about creating one for
themselves. Most website
companies don’t understand
medicine and most doctors
don’t understand digital
technology. A pharma
company could create
individual websites for doctors,
with the domain name which
the doctor himself chooses.
Not only is this very valuable
digital real estate, it also then
opens up a direct marketing
channel to the doctor for the
pharma company. After all,
every doctor takes pride in
his own website, and not only
will he print his url on his
visiting cards and letter heads,
he will check it to analyse the

3. traffic he is getting (doctors
can be very competitive). The
trick is to provide content
rich websites, which are
prepopulated according to the
specialty of the doctor, which
he can then further customise
and personalise if he wants to.
Tapping the ultimate
customer
The ultimate customers for the
pharma sector are patients,
but how does one engage
with them? This has always
been a challenge for many
reasons. Pharma industry does
not want to upset doctors
by bypassing them; and
they have to function under
stringent guidelines which
regulate direct to consumer
(DTC) marketing. Pharma
industry needs to learn to put
patients first – and the best
way of doing this is to focus
on creating trust rather than
building brands.
We all know that patients
have lots of questions
about the drugs the doctors
prescribes them. Most of these
doubts about side-effects are
never answered by either the
doctor or the chemist. This
lacuna is a huge opportunity
for pharma cpmpanies to step
in, and educate patients about
the medicines their doctor has
prescribed for them – after all,
pharma sector is the scientific
expert on the molecules and
has a responsibility to ensure
they are used properly.
Pharma companies need to
educate the user about these
medicines, when he wants this
information (usually, before
he actually swallows the pill).
Pharma companies need to be
honest, open and transparent,
and provide information which
the patient wants to know
(warts and all); in terms he can
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Information Therapy
understand; and also check
that he has understood.
Pharma industry
understands the value of
contacting patients – after
all, non-compliance is a big
problem and non-adherence
creates a financial loss for
the pharma company, along
with impairing the patient’s
health. Especially for chronic
illnesses such as diabetes and
hypertension, pharma industry
needs to create lifelong
customers. What can they do
to ensure that patients do not
switch brands?
Digital tools
The good news is that there’s
plenty of technology available
today which pharma industry
can use to connect directly
with their patients – after all,
over 200 million Indians are
now online. Here’s a simple
example. Companies can
include QR codes which link
to their website in their PIL
(patient information leaflets).
Patients always have many
questions about the side effects
of the medicines they have
been prescribed, and doctors
rarely have the time, energy
or inclination to answer
these, which is why patients
are forced to use Dr Google
to find out more about what
drugs they are taking. If the
pharma company provided
this information to the patient
directly, this would be a winwin for everyone.
Pharma industry can also
develop lots of clever tools to
engage with patients directly.
They can create mobile apps,
to help patients manage
their diseases (for example,
diabetes); or develop Facebook
games to incentivise patients to
stop smoking or lose weight).
These are many successful pilot
projects, which can be scaled
up if they are adopted by
pharma companies. One way
to test the waters is to partner
with active health NGOs, by
running pilot projects to see
how these evolve.
In the past, pharmaceutical
companies were held in high
regard because the drugs they
helped to discover saved lives
and helped fight diseases.
Today, on the other hand, they
get lots of bad press. They are
seen to be greedy because they
overcharge for their drugs;
they waste a lot of money on
advertising; they develop drugs
which ‘treat’ unimportant
lifestyle issues; and are thought
to be unethical because they
indulge in underhand practices
to encourage doctors to
prescribe their medications.
The good news is that
Information Therapy provides
a great opportunity for
pharmaceutical companies
to restore their tarnished
reputations – and companies
which adopt this will become
market leaders. Pharma
industry is in the business
of doing good by helping
people to remain healthy.
Doing good can do pharma
industry good.
Pharma companies
that adopt
information therapy
will become market
leaders
Health Biz India December 2013 57