Healthcare: The New Era
The market is not changing, it has already changed!
The new model is complex and there is a big shift compared to a few years ago. Continuous research on how it is changing seems mandatory to keep up with the competition.
- Companies’ stakeholders are keeping expanding as well as their internal structures.
- The network around the patient is no longer primarily depend on the direct contacts- physicians, pharmacists, nurses, and caregivers.
- Patients and other stakeholders’ source of info is now immense. The market is still learning- in fast pace- how to master interconnection between all stakeholders, external and internal, and what best channels, to monitor and to communicate their stakeholders through, either directly or indirectly.
- Adding to the complexity, the channels to reach healthcare companies’ stakeholders become endless and mastering which channel to use for which product, to reach whom, and when is a cornerstone for today’s companies’ success.
- However, the health economics and products value are the current languages, it sooner becomes not enough. The beyond servicing (patient support programs, digital tools, partnering with advocacy groups, considering patients’ preference,..etc) becomes an important aspect of better health outcomes.
- To be more interesting, there is a great advancement in many areas with big hopes for better outcomes as a result, immunotherapy, gene revolution and integration of digital solutions as a part of the treatment advancement are just examples of many.
Patient Centricity
The patient centricity is changing the working model. The faster a company copes, the easier to differentiate and grow.
In the Middle East, the healthcare systems are rapidly moving towards health outcomes rather than products’ features.
It is now clear how healthcare companies are changing their internal structures, way of work, focus on market access and patients support programs, their websites’ educational content for patients, their patient-focused marketing material, medical reps soft skills training and their patient focus in every step of their sales call, even how patient-centric a sales call is, becomes a core output of current message recall studies.
Patient centricity, in many different ways, is now an integral part of most of the research solutions tailored to our clients’ needs.
Consumerism in Healthcare
We believe in the importance of understanding patients, caregivers, and/ or advocacy groups as a key for any new launch to fly. It is not only about emotional intelligence, but also about informed strategies for market access.
The empowerment of today’s patient comes from the easy to access knowledge about their diseases and available treatments as well as those in the pipeline. Different from a few years ago, this knowledge leads to patients’ new role in sharing their treatment decision. The Multiple Sclerosis markets is a good example especially at the time of first oral treatment.
There are other angles of it, the patients in many parts of the MEA region, are either co-paying a share of their treatments or even sometimes totally out-of-pocket. Again, this leads to sharing treatment decisions. The newly launched expensive Immunology and Oncology products are good examples.
If you are a newcomer to the middle east, or an existing entity entering a new therapy area, getting the needful local insights from a capable research agency is crucial for a market-oriented strategy for fast and successful entry and sustainable growth.
Advocacy Groups Continuum
Patients Groups become empowered by time. Currently, they present the patient perspective to advance cancer research to ensure the patient-focused drug development. They become engaged in recruitment or even the design of clinical trials, review committees and help in write patient-friendly consent forms.
It becomes clearer that good Patient Groups’ relations establish positive working relationships with influential patient and professional associations that share manufacturers’ goals and that can champion a company’s products.
How a company can partner with advisory groups for patients’ benefits is used to be a big doubt at Patients Support Groups. We can facilitate a mid-point for common understanding and mutual benefit.
Digital Health Transformation
The use of digital in pharmaceutical/ healthcare industry isn’t that new, but recent innovations in the digital health arena is a kind of a leap towards real transformation.
It was too fast for some approaches to be perceived as old days’ digital solutions, digital health solutions like the social media listening for patients and physicians, segmenting physicians according to their usage of different channels, reaching physicians in a fast and more efficient manner through email campaigns, webinars, mobile apps survey and reminders, electronic health records.
With the global move of pharma companies towards patient-centricity, the digital health market put patients first as well and started to innovate a lot of digitals that can improve outcomes, build connections with patients through medication adherence solutions. FDA recently approved pills and solutions with sensors to track medications adherence, timely and remotely monitoring patients’ vital signs, tracking environmental conditions surrounding patients, and many other solutions that can add value to conventional therapies and consequently improved patients’ adherence and hence better outcomes.
But what about the market readiness across the Middle East and Africa countries towards these very costly digital health innovations, what our patients’ and their physicians’ perceptions towards their usefulness and risks, and most importantly what are the payers’ point of view in their value. It is usually important to partner with a consultancy that can guide your digital strategy based on concrete evidence.