Thanks for joining us today. This webinar is the fourth and final one in our series. So if you haven’t had a chance to watch the recording of the first three, I do encourage you to do that. They have a lot of good information for some of the more earlier market access planning and strategy and some of the initiatives in those aspects. For today, joining me we have my colleagues Leigh and Jay, both solution consultants, respectively at Skipta and MMIT, both bring a wide variety of experiences from their current roles and previous organizations on a lot of the promotional support, whether that’s again in- person or some remote promotional opportunities, which we’ll discuss today. And really what we’re focusing on is promotional strategy really divided into four key areas. The first is identifying and creating a target list of HCPs and really how to do that.
The second would be pre-call planning and really some of the tools that a field rep would need for some of that pre-call planning and some of the best practices there. The third is our HCP engagement. So when you’re actually onsite having a live engagement, maybe a Zoom call, but also through omnichannel efforts and non-personal promotion as well. Lastly, we’ll follow up with really what’s the best way to do follow-up with HCPs and how do you evaluate your promotional success and maybe retinkering or reevaluating some of the strategy tools, et cetera. But before talking about HCP targeting, Jay, what are some of the typical milestones that a brand team would need to hit?
Yeah, it’s a great question, John. What we’ve learned through some extensive market research is that the preparation for commercialization starts quite a bit early as early as two years is what we’ve seen. And this is mainly due to the magnitude of milestones that need to be achieved prior to drug launch. Roughly anywhere between 24 to 18 months prior to launch, we are seeing teams focus more on identifying the ideal HCP target list. So imagine a use case where you have a million physicians across the nation. How do I really hone in on the right physicians for my brand for my therapeutic area? That really is what comes into play in that 24 to 18 months. We’ll discuss a little bit more about that and how they narrow down those physician target lists shortly. But once that target list is defined, it’s at that point the brand team can determine what their Salesforce sizing and structure looks like, how many reps do they need to have, what their territories they need to cover, where they need to deploy all their teams to be efficient and impactful.
Once those sales teams have been built out, that’s where their alignments have been finalized. The next major milestone is putting in an efficient call planning process together, informing the reps who to call, when to call to help optimize throughput, productivity, and eventually increasing prescribing behaviors. What is happening in parallel behind all of this is the strategy, design, and creation of some of their pull-through material. Partnering with a company like MMIT can equip your sales teams with the best in class promotional solutions, whether that be FormTrack solution that can dynamically populate plans and access information based on HCP prescribing behaviors natively into their existing CRM tool, or even supporting their branded websites through CoverageFinder to ensure that any viewer going to their branded website can understand what coverage and access might look like for their specific insurance plan. Now, of course, there’s a lot more that goes into preparation for a new drug launch, but these are some of the key milestones that are pivotal for commercialization.
Perfect. Now, what are some best practices for that early stage of identifying a good HCP target list and how should our clients really go about doing that?
Yeah, absolutely. So one of the key focal points for defining a good target list boils down to the data, ensuring we’re leveraging as much data as possible to determine the right physicians at the right time. Variables such as specialty, prescribing behaviors, historical volume, et cetera, will help determine and narrow down the millions of NPIs that your field team could be focusing on. There are different strategies for a brand team that can put into place for MPI targeting, such as new wins, recency bias towards spiking volume, access criteria where competition is excelling. All of these strategies are defined by the quality and robustness of the data and the underlying information that they’re sourcing this information from.
Certainly. And assuming that these HCP target lists would not remain static, would they change over time?
Absolutely. A good brand strategy is always to leverage data and just adjust and update your physician target list based off of recency information. HCPs that were big prescribers for your therapeutic area once upon a time can drastically shift based on various factors. So having your teams focus on old data is not necessarily setting them up for success. We want to make sure we tweak all of that based off of what their prescribing behaviors might look like in the last four weeks, eight weeks, 12 weeks, so on and so forth. MMIT’s coverage and claims dashboard helps branded teams link their zip-to-tear alignment so that brand leads can review all physicians within a given target to see what that volume has looked like over a period of time. So having those dashboards or downstream tools in place to help support some of that agility and updating those physician target lists is really helping your brand teams and setting them up for success.
Now once that list is updated, how do you prepare your field reps before they start contacting HGPs and how do you establish maybe a more sustainable process for that team?
So pre-call planning is really important in ensuring that the reps feel comfortable and confident about what their plan is to cover during that given account or during that given engagement. There are a lot of variables that can impact what may be relevant or what’s worth discussing. And the last thing you want to do is waste the physician’s time and lose credibility. There’s variables such as accessing the geography, what’s their geolocation look like? What’s their patient population look like? Understand the demographics and the typical patients that that physician tends to see. What are some of the recent medical activities based on alerts? Recent lab tests that have occurred, new wins, market share analysis, how much script that physician’s been writing for my brand versus my competition. All of these variables help support a rep and ensure that their messaging not only resonates but is curated and bespoke to each and every account that they engage with.
If I’m seeing multiple physicians that practice in the same office building or medical building, I want to be sure that my conversations with each in one of them are unique and different. Why? Because each one of those physicians see different patients and their different demographics. So we want to make sure we curate our content based off of that.
And I think one thing to add here is really also in the clinical pathways. The physician prescribing behavior could really be impacted by a multitude of factors, payer coverage, their knowledge of a brand in terms of efficacy, safety. But a lot of these provider organizations, the IDNs, health systems, they’re also creating pathways, EMR pop-ups, other order sets that are really incentivizing, maybe penalizing physicians from what they actually prescribe. So having that information is also good for the field team to just know at a high level are there other influences before they dive into some of the other pre-qual planning aspects as well. Absolutely. So we kind of touched upon the pre-call planning piece, but what about after the visit? What are some maybe best practices for follow-up?
Yeah. What we’ve seen historically is that when it comes to pool-through, most of the post-call activities are typically delivered in the form of a lead behind material. And however, when you’re bulk printing your cell sheets, it often results into generalizing information and delivering material that is rolled up to a payer level and that’s not really specific to a given account. Where we’re seeing the industry shift dramatically is having post-call activities be delivered digitally really curated and bespoke to each and every one of the accounts that they engage with. Having a rep triggered email that curates content based that specific account really makes that information a lot more … It allows them to resonate more with the accounts that they’re delivering it to. So to give you an example, FormTrak allows you to take those curated and bespoke templates that you’ve created and deliver them in the form of a rep triggered email template.
Having it be delivered as a digital asset allows your brand teams to track how often HCPs are engaging with your content, identify how frequently your reps are engaging and sending over pull-through content to their accounts. It allows you to track utilization of your CRM platforms where providing a one-stop shop wherever reps can do pre-call planning, the engagement itself and all post-call activity directly from their single CRM application. So it really helps the utilization of not only your CRM application, but also your pull-through content. And then last but not least, it really helps solidify and help you calculate and quantify if your brand strategy is working. And if you’re starting to see that the response or the utilization on the recipient of that pull-through content is fairly low and these accounts are not accessing this information on a timely cadence, then it might result in a change in behavior or a change in strategy from a brand perspective.
So getting that ROI to be able to quantify for strategies working I think is quite pivotal as well.
Right. Really great advice for the post-call view, some of the pre-qual planning. But so far we’ve really been focused in talking about the engagement of physicians in person. So let’s talk about the other ways of reaching your target audience for pharma companies that are putting together really sophisticated omnichannel engagements and they’re starting to really do that now, but what are some of the best practices you guys would recommend there?
So it’s always important to remember that HCPs are consumers too, just like us. They don’t get all of their information from one source. There are certain channels that they prefer for different types of learning. No one’s exactly the same. So it’s important to share brand updates and key information in a number of different ways and in different channels. HCPs ultimately need to know about a brand’s efficacy and safety data, whether or not their patients will be covered, and any product differentiators. And this type of information is really best conveyed when an HCP is leaning forward, looking to learn. So they might not appreciate a brand email hitting their inbox on the weekend, for example. MMIT’s sister companies skipped a … It’s a private and secure platform where verified HCPs can collaborate. This is a spot where we serve up relevant content to HCPs while they’re already spending time in a condition specific community.
So they’re demonstrating to a brand team that this is somewhere they’re coming to learn. HCPs are also social and sometimes even competitive. Like consumers, some want to try cutting edge therapy and technologies right away, get it straight into their practice. A lot of HCPs, like a lot of us, kind of want to wait and watch. These HCPs really rely on KOLs or other colleagues to share best practices before they’re comfortable trying out new approaches in their own practices. So this is where peer-to-peer promotion and education come into play. For example, the Skipta content and engagement team creates opportunities on our platform for HCPs to discuss topics that are relevant to a brand, develop quizzes aimed at changing HC perceptions, and then also recruits, curates, and moderates KOL Q&A sessions. So these programs like other programs on the market allow for HCPs to challenge each other and themselves, but the brand team also gets insights they might not get from just how many people clicked on this or from a field visit necessarily because they are seeing many people in a day.
So for example, a first-in-class brand indicated for spinal muscular atrophy sponsored a banner supported quiz program and the results of the quiz showed that HCPs really needed additional education on the mechanism of disease and they also weren’t completely clear on what patient factors were impacting therapy success. So the brand was able to use these insights to not only inform their field reps that maybe they should reinforce this messaging, but also altered their NPP messaging going forward.
Yeah, really interesting findings there. And really important, especially as these field teams have less and less time face-to-face with these HCPs and they have to be much more targeted with the messaging and the content that they bring. But what about the more traditional definition of omnichannel marketing?
Sure. So if we want to talk about the true meaning of omnichannel, really that’s reaching HCPs across channels with a consistent and interconnected messaging journey. So as I mentioned before, it’s best to capture HCPs when they’ve demonstrated interest in learning about a brand. And omnichannel messaging really addresses this and capitalizes on it by serving up messages based on HCP behavior. So at Skipta, we have a product called Skipta Next or NXT where we can trigger messaging based on Norstella’s real-world data. So if an HCP prescribes something or orders a lab for something that can trigger a message to them. We also incorporate client trigger files or segmentation lists. So if you have a segment of HCPs that didn’t get a field rep visit, we can ensure they’re getting that relevant information. You might simply not be able to get to everybody via a field rep.
Or if they did get a visit after a certain amount of time passes, we can send a reminder to reinforce that in- person engagement. Skiptia can also trigger within the platform, meaning if an HCP engages with some peer-to-peer content, a follow-up brand email or alert can be sent to take advantage of that interest. Omnichannel marketing is an increasingly important piece of a brand’s promotional plans, but not all companies are set up or equipped, especially launch brand companies to deploy these really sophisticated programs. So it’s helpful to have a partner that has the flexibility to either utilize a robust data engine or use their own triggers within their own platform.
No, certainly. And what are some other ways pharma could be more targeted with non-personal promotional tools? What types of tools can you build and how can they be combined or the combined organization other MIT and skip to help? Is messaging really at the payer level enough today, or do we have to go a little bit deeper with some of these tools?
Yeah, it’s a great question, John. So non-profit promotion is pivotal in getting your message across to not only the ACPs, but also the patients themselves. Having a branded website ensures that everyone at any given moment can look up what access, restrictions and coverage looks like for a given insurance plan. Having a website that educates the general public with real-time and accurate information is invaluable as it keeps all parties involved with the latest and greatest information. And quite frankly, it’s unrealistic to assume that the office staff or at HCP can recall and remember every bit of information that a rep has shared across with them. So having a website to reference back that has all the same information is key to ensuring prescribing behaviors do not get impacted negatively. With MMIT’s CoverageFinder tool, they can now equip branded websites with not only real-time access information, but also all the supporting documents like PA forms or medical exception forms that are needed to get a patient onto therapy.
This makes it a lot easier for HCPs and office staffs to have everything they need in one place to help get their patients the right access to the right therapies at the right time.
So because we partner with MMIT, Skipta can actually bring a brand’s website and the customized CoverageFinder tool right into the platform in a few different ways. So the dynamic formulary messaging can be delivered to an HCP’s inbox via a brand email. It can live in their community stream via native posts, or we can bring the entire Coverage Finder site directly into Skipta with what’s called a coverage showcase. So if an HCP is visiting Oncology Nation, for example, they’d have access to a mirror site and get the same experience as if they visited brand.com. They can get that NPI level coverage information. And then finally, market access banners, even if it’s something at the payer level can be then extend across the BrandSafe web as a reminder for HCPs that did engage with any of those tactics. So once they see that on Skipta, if they go to ESPN or cnn.com, they’ll see the banner reminding them there as well.
Excellent. So now that we’ve talked about a lot of the promotional strategies and whether that’s in- person again or omnichannel efforts, lastly, how do you evaluate how well your promotional strategies are working?
Yeah, it’s quite important to measure Salesforce effectiveness. So I think a good brand team periodically needs to check in and measure the success of what they’re doing. Do they have the right Salesforce sizing? Do I have the right engagement support? Do I have the right tools in place to put the sales reps in for success? Are more patients getting on a therapy now that the strategy’s in place? Are we seeing uptick in volume and prescribing behaviors? Within the Salesforce effectiveness program, you have to be sure that we remove any of the biases out of the equation, let the data speak for itself. By leveraging claims and sales data, we can identify over time if the Salesforce enthesizing and structure is optimal for your pull-through strategy and see if it’s actually working or not.
And also as you begin to evaluate the effectiveness of the promotional strategies, you might discover the need to expand your target list. So using real-world data like lab or claims data, brands can expand their reach to HCPs that might not have been the primary focus of field outreach, but are still important targets for non-personal promotion. For on client, a brand indicated for general myasthenia gravis, we enhanced the target list and included top treaters based on patient volume, care team members, sphere of influence HCPs. That’s essentially those who treat at the same facilities as target list HCPs. And finally, NPs and pharmacists practicing at infusion centers. So in doing so, we were able to expand the relevant audience eight times from 10,000 target list HCPs to more than 80,000 and this led to a significant increase in engagement delivery against guarantees.
And I think another thing to add really is when looking at data and you’re trying to evaluate that effectiveness and changes in prescribing behavior, we’ve seen a lot of our clients turn to real-world data, looking at claims, other data sources to understand maybe before some of their promotional strategies were in place, what were the prescribing behaviors in terms of competitor scripts, HCP targeting based on what was done days, weeks, months, years ago to after their promotional strategy is actually in effect for a while. This is just an example here really of seeing the impact of either promotional strategies, a combination of maybe access strategies as well, where prescribing behavior did change over time from maybe more of a standard of the care therapy or agent that’s been on the market for years to some of the more new groundbreaking therapies that you guys listening are launching day by day, week by week, every year.
So I know we’ve covered a lot of ground today in a very short period of time, but what are some of your final thoughts?
Yeah, I mean, look, launching a brand is hard. There is a lot that goes into it, but I think partnering with the right companies and leaning on the right organization’s expertise by leveraging key learnings experience in data, companies like MOIT can really help streamline and optimize success of your launch. Brand teams only get one chance to get this right, so it’s pivotal to be sure we provide them the right tools and information so they can have a successful launch.
Jay is absolutely right. Launch is a critical time and a brand’s lifecycle, but it’s important to remember that more so than ever, teams have access to data and resources that allow them to pivot when necessary, real world data, real-time feedback from HCPs and having those trusted partners can really allow teams to adjust targeting messaging and even omnichannel strategies throughout launch and into growth and maturity.
Perfect. No, well said. But thank you all for attending today’s session. If you have any questions, please send them our way as well as connecting with us on our socials so you could see upcoming meet the expert sessions and any other publications that we have. So thanks again for the time.
