Leveraging Peer-to-Peer Networks in Pharmaceutical Marketing - Innovation and Marketing in the Pharmaceutical Industry - page 449

Chapter 15
Leveraging Peer-to-Peer Networks
in Pharmaceutical Marketing

Tulikaa Bhatia

Abstract This chapter focuses on the identification of opinion leaders in physician
networks as a substantial opportunity for pharmaceutical firms rethinking their
business model, and looking for improving resource allocation in order to increase
their return on investment. It points out the various challenges and the advantages of
identifying regional opinion leaders, especially when it comes to sustained use
of branded drugs marketed by pharmaceutical firms. It includes a basic overview of
network structure and the formation of physician social networks. This is a growing
area of importance for various disciplines such as epidemiology, sociology, econom-
ics, and marketing. In this chapter, the reader will get introduced to several models
of physician social networks which help isolate and measure the effect of opinion
leaders, both self-stated and those identified by patient referral data. The author
points out the managerial implications of this stream of research and promising areas
of opportunity for deeper analysis for this promising nascent research stream.

15.1 Introduction

The identification of opinion leaders in physician networks is a substantial opportunity
for pharmaceutical firms rethinking their business model, and looking for improving
resource allocation in order to increase their return on investment. Pharmaceutical
firms have focused on cost cutting to deal with the revenue loss due to patent expiry,
which has reduced the size of their sales force. The overall size of the industry's US
sales force declined 10 % to about 92,000 in 2009 from a peak of about 102,000 in
2007 and is projected to fall to 75,000 in the next few years (Goldstein 2009 ). There
is also declining productivity of sales calls since there is a greater pushback from

T. Bhatia ( * )
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