Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
new products, especially in Europe. That is, we see that detailing still has a critical
role to play—perhaps somewhat downsized but, more critically, deployed more
effectively over product life cycles and across geographic regions. Moreover, as the
potential for discovering and marketing big blockbuster products like Lipitor is
much lower today than in the past, big pharma's attention is increasingly shifting to
the discovery of higher-margin, niche or specialty-driven drugs, e.g., in the disease
areas of oncology, multiple sclerosis. that fi ll an unmet medical need and provide a
more personalized approach toward treatment (LaMotta
2010a
). The promotion of
such products in the future will certainly require more sophisticated communication
to specialist physicians and hospital buying centers than in the past—and face-to-
face personal selling is likely to remain the best way to provide these communica-
tions (see, e.g., Mantrala and Albers
2010
).
Additionally, as pharma market potentials of developed markets shrink with thin-
ning new product pipelines, more aggressive generic producer entries, and stiffer
managed care oversight, big pharma's attention is increasingly turning to the poten-
tial of emerging markets, e.g., the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South
Africa). The emerging markets are forecast to contribute around 70 % of pharma-
ceutical industry growth in the next 5 years with branded generics representing
approximately 50 % by value in these emerging markets (LaMotta
2010b
). Again,
this is a “made for detailing” push scenario implying that pharma sales forces are
likely to remain key marketing instruments in these markets. In fact, they are likely
to grow. For example, Pfi zer has been growing its sales forces and manufacturing
capabilities in India and China over the last 2 years. The company announced in
2009 that it had entered into licensing agreements with two Indian pharmaceutical
companies for off-patent medicines and branded generics. Our fi ndings and insights
from this pharma detailing meta-analysis are restricted by the quantity and quality
of the detailing response models in our database. They can be enhanced and
improved if more studies in more diverse market settings, along with more detailed
descriptions of the selling-task, are conducted in the future. Considering the strate-
gic moves being made by the industry summarized above, the need for econometric
studies from more diverse settings is urgent to understand how detailing effective-
ness will evolve in the new markets being chased by the industry. For the sake of
having maximum impact (e.g., Farley et al.
1998
) we hope more of these future
studies are (a) from European, South American, or Asian settings, (b) use different
levels of temporal aggregation, (c) include the critical omitted variables and (d)
account for endogeneity in sales response.
References
Albers S, Mantrala MK (2008) Models for sales management decisions. In: Wierenga B (ed)
Handbook of marketing decision models. Springer, Berlin, pp 163-210
Albers S, Mantrala MK, Sridhar S (2010) Personal selling elasticities: a meta-analysis. J Mark Res
47:840-853
Alkhateeb FM, Doucette WR (2008) Electronic detailing (e-detailing) of pharmaceuticals to
physicians: a review. Int J Pharm Healthcare Mark 2(3):235-245
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