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Pharmaceutical detailing is the most time-tested marketing format in the medical content world. Old-timer sales reps should remember how pharmaceutical companies reckoned face-to-face (F2F) visits with doctors as the most effective approach to achieving their sales targets.

With the advent of digital marketing, plenty of new forms of online communication emerged and eventually superseded detailing, turning from the most fundamental method of engagement into one of many.

But as it turned out, the power of engagement doesn’t depend on the number of sources.

On the contrary, search engines and social media provided healthcare professionals (HCPs) with more information about products and trends in the pharmaceutical industry and made them fastidious.

HCPs’ constantly increasing demand for personalized experiences encouraged pharma companies to refresh their marketing strategies and use pharmaceutical detailing in a new electronic way.

After reading this guide, you’ll be able to define the main differences between detailing and e-detailing, discover the benefits of this content format in the context of innovation, and understand how to leverage its efficiency with other marketing channels.

The guide will be equally helpful to experienced pharma representatives who want to revise their knowledge of detailing and specialists who joined the pharma sales force not long ago.

Read it till the end to download a case study that contains professional content tips on presenting your pharma company and products with an engaging e-detailer.

What Is Pharmaceutical Detailing?

Pharmaceutical detailing is a marketing technique that allows sales representatives of a pharmaceutical company to promote products and services to healthcare professionals (HCPs) using a detailed presentation.

Detailing plays a vital role in the pharmaceutical industry for many reasons. First, it helps build a strong relationship between pharmaceutical companies and healthcare professionals, providing the latter with detailed information on the latest research, new products, and so on. Pharmaceutical representatives who communicate with healthcare professionals serve as the main source of credible information, guiding them through all the available and new medications and educating them on how each can be incorporated into treatment plans.

Moreover, detailing is a way for HCPs to stay current with the latest research and understand the direction of the pharmaceutical industry. With detailing, healthcare professionals can stay up to date with new findings and trends without spending much time learning more about the pharmaceutical landscape.

Main Types of Detailing in the Pharmaceutical Industry

There are several types of pharmaceutical detailing. Let’s look at some e-detailing examples and their importance.

Academic detailing

Academic detailing is a non-commercial face-to-face demonstration of new prescription drugs by healthcare professionals to their colleagues or patients in academic medical centers.

Academic detailing has educational value. The goal of conducting academic detailing is to improve the quality and results of clinical trials, patient care, prescribing patterns, and prescribing behavior.

Traditional detailing

Traditional detailing is a face-to-face demonstration of pharmaceutical products and services by sales representatives to healthcare professionals. The goal of conducting detailing is to provide doctors with all the necessary information on new drugs and their effectiveness.

E-Detailing

E-detailing is a digital marketing practice used by pharmaceutical sales representatives to present a company’s products and services to healthcare professionals online with an interactive presentation called e-detailer.

Depending on the marketing approach, some pharma marketing specialists divide e-detailing into two categories: self-detailing and remote detailing.

In the process of self-detailing, an HCP reviews an e-detailer alone without the guidance of a pharmaceutical representative. Remote detailing is an online one-in-one demonstration of an e-detailer by a pharmaceutical representative to an HCP during a video call or webinar.

There are also three types of e-detailing, subject to the purpose of HCP engagement.

Benefits of E-Detailing for Pharmaceutical Sales Representatives

According to a survey by BCG, 84% of physicians want to maintain or increase online interactions with pharmaceutical companies.

Interestingly, the same report showed that 60% of HCPs prefer to learn more about new prescription products during an in-person visit by a pharmaceutical sales representative.

In such a hybrid communication environment, detailing is a perfect way to engage with HCPs.

Let’s find out why.

Benefit 1. Full accessibility and increased engagement

Typically, HCPs are very busy and don’t want to change their overloaded schedules or be interrupted because a sales rep needs to sell a new drug. E-detailers changed the way direct-to-consumer advertising works in the pharma industry.

The high level of e-detailing accessibility multiplies the level of HCP engagement. E-detailing creates human-oriented experiences for HCPs, eliminating sales representative obtrusiveness that might have turned many health professionals off in the past.

Now, it’s up to a health professional to decide how, where, and when to access information provided by pharmaceutical and life science companies.

For some reason, an HCP can’t attend one-on-one meetings and can use an e-detailer anytime via any device they want, like a desktop computer, laptop, smartphone, or tablet, and via any preferred channel, such as email or social media. An HCP who doesn’t mind meeting with a sales rep can view an e-detailer during a video call or after a live webinar.

Pharma sales reps can attract HCPs’ attention and create the feeling of total control over the situation thanks to e-detailing rich functionality:

• Media. Images, video, and audio help sales reps engage HCPs with an engaging story;
• Animation. Animated content looks way more attractive and engaging;
• Navigation Menu. HCPs can instantly jump to slides they like;
• References & Resources. All sources mentioned in an e-detailer are near at hand, which allows HCPs to check the authenticity of data presented in an e-detailer.

Benefit 2. Detailed analytics

One of the greatest benefits of electronic pharmaceutical detailing is that drug companies don’t have to meet HCPs personally to understand the overall impact of e-detailers on their decisions.

Being integrated with in-depth analytics in a customer relationship management (CRM) system, an e-detailer contains key performance indicators (KPIs) to collect real-time data about HCPs’ interactions.

There are several types of KPIs pharma companies can use:

• Quantitative KPIs: time per slide, the number of demonstrated slides, the order of slide demonstration, attitude towards the slide, and beyond;
• Qualitative KPIs: prescriptions, interactive surveys, and beyond.

KPIs allow companies to track any HCPs’ actions on e-detailers depending on their business goals and the e-detailing pharma software they use. Performance metrics are crucial because they help sales representatives find and improve inefficiencies in their pharmaceutical detailing strategies.

Benefit 3. HCP feedback and better customer experience

Along with information received with performance metrics, direct feedback from health professionals can improve pharmaceutical detailing strategies and pharma marketing.

One more slide with a simple feedback form added to the end of an e-detailer can dramatically increase customer experience in the future. By providing unique insights, HCPs can expand the knowledge of pharmaceutical companies about:

• The Subject of an E-Detailer. HCPs can share their professional and personal opinions on the brand, products, or any other e-detailing topic with a drug company;
• Quality of E-detailing. HCPs can recommend pharmaceutical representatives to improve the content and its appearance and find possible mistakes and inconsistencies;
• Target Audience. HCPs can tell about their colleges’ needs, preferences, interests, competence, expertise, and beyond;
• Pharma Industry and Market. Even if HCPs can say nothing about the industry and market, they may say something that would pull some suggestions out of the minds of pharmaceutical representatives.

A pharma company can also create an interactive slide for conducting a survey based on multiple-choice questions as an alternative to a feedback form. In pharma marketing, such content has enormous potential for creating more effective means of HCP engagement.

Benefit 4. Omnichannel versatility

As one of the top healthcare marketing trends, omnichannel marketing is the future of communication between pharmaceutical representatives and HCPs.

In an omnichannel environment, pharmaceutical companies combine e-detailing with other channels to create personalized customer journeys and engage with different groups of HCPs based on data analytics.

To leverage the effectiveness of the e-detailing process for an HCP or a group of HCPs with the same characteristics, pharmaceutical sales representatives and marketers identify the most preferred combination of communication channels and use them as touchpoints in a customer journey at the right time.

In such a way, e-detailing becomes human-centered, looks professional, and feels natural.

E-Detailing Best Practices + Case Study

There are several principal approaches to creating eDetailers your organization should consider.

Be careful with texts

Don’t overload the slides of your eDetailer with texts. The goal of any detailer is to support a sales representative’s pitch, not to be its basis. If an eDetailer contains too much text information, it could confuse an HCP. Use text to highlight the essential information and share the rest orally to keep an HCP focused and engaged.

Interactivity is a must

Make your eDetailer as interactive as possible. Content doesn’t attract attention without an engaging presentation. Create immersive experiences for HCPs by adding transitions between slides, animating objects, and hiding interesting facts in pop-ups and drop-down lists.

Make it as intuitive as possible

Create layouts that are easy to understand to make HCPs easily perceive eDetailing content at first glance and stick to the principle of simplicity. If you don’t know how to make your eDetailers simpler and more intuitive, show your eDetailer to your team before engaging with HCPs. After engaging with HCPs, ask for detailed feedback and track their interactions within each slide.

Read how we assisted a top 50 pharmaceutical enterprise in transforming complicated descriptive materials into an easy-to-understand interactive e-detailer. Download a concise case study to learn e-detailing best practices in more detail, present your pharmaceutical product at its best, and successfully engage with HCPs.

Professional E-Detailers for a Pharmaceutical Company Made Easy

Want to create next-generation interactive presentations with top-notch design and tailor them to the current needs of HCPs in personalized customer journeys?

eWizard, a content experience platform, enables top pharma and life sciences companies with everything needed to leverage pharmaceutical detailing in omnichannel marketing:

• Intuitive Creation. Thanks to a diverse collection of pre-built templates and easy-to-use tools, pharmaceutical representatives can create interactive e-detailers without professional coding and design skills;
• Accelerated MLR Review and Approval. Powered by modular content, eWizard allows your company to reuse pre-approved content blocks and tremendously accelerate the medical, legal, and regulatory process for e-detailing;
• Integration for any Purpose and KPI Tracking. Your team can integrate eWizard with any popular system or platform to thoroughly analyze the effectiveness of e-detailing by tracking HCP behavior on an advanced level.

Please complete the form below, and our specialists will get to you shortly with a professional e-detailing consultation.

Customer Relations Management (CRM) – three words that may sound super complicated, although many business areas have implemented different CRM approaches since the early 1970s. Nowadays, the CRM system is an inevitable part of almost any online industry, and, of course, it’s crucial for healthcare and life science. 

As the average aging of the population grows, together with chronic disease cases, the demand for medical and pharma services only increases. In the United States, 25% of people under 45 have reported chronic conditions. The higher the age, the more people require stable medical treatment — people from 45 to 65 report 50% of chronic diseases, and the largest group is people over 65 (81% of chronic cases). Such a massive number of patients requires a more advanced approach regarding patient relationships and how to manage them. 

The market researchers expect the healthcare CRM market size to reach $17.8 billion by 2025, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) growth of more than 9%. 

This article will cover the main aspects of the best CRM for pharmacy and its benefits. Let’s go. 

What Does CRM Stand for in Healthcare?

Let’s start with what CRM is. CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management, which is widely used across industries. CRM tools are currently rising in popularity due to their ability to quickly store customer-related information and allow users to access it swiftly without having to go through several processes to retrieve just one document or any other details. CRM in the pharmaceutical industry plays a crucial role, as its features and abilities assist industry workers in collecting and managing various types of data, ranging from patient records to information about various research endeavors. 

Usually, pharmaceutical CRM software solutions are developed to maintain and promote positive customer experience and comfortable management. It helps to organize communication processes, keep track of operational activities, and see what works in your management approaches and what requires changes in the current health system. 

Typically, CRM allows the execution of the following activities: 

Communication

Communication with the patient is the most vital thing that healthcare can have. An uncomfortable and broken communication chain usually leads to the interruption of treatment and the potential worsening of the condition. A proper customer relations system should allow one to initiate, schedule, and manage patient appointments with HCPs, making both customer and service provider lives much easier.

Management

As the daily life of any company consists of numerous tasks, the healthcare CRM system should allow assignments or add task tickets to people, making monitoring work progress, deadlines, and updates more comfortable. It makes communication and treatment process smoother and continuous, giving better results and creating an exciting experience for the patient.

Reporting

Analytics is the next vital thing that is supposed to be integrated into the CRM. A proper report system is critical to understanding business dynamics. This feature allows every user to create and personalize various analytical reports, from marketing campaigns’ ROI to the average patient count. 

Patient Management

As any CRM system should be adapted to the business industry’s requirements, healthcare CRM software is also centered on providing specific features and technologies for patient management. A unique healthcare industry feature allows creation, updating, and segregating of patient records based on their diseases, conditions, feedback, or other specifics. Such sensitive data inside pharmacy CRM software should be stored according to HIPAA compliance. It means that HIPAA-compliant patient relationship management tool is highly protected from data breaches and malicious intruders, taking full responsibility for data security.

Key Benefits of Healthcare CRM System

As you can see, CRM software covers most parts of the daily operational routine. It significantly helps employees to handle tasks and reduces the number of human mistakes during management. However, modern healthcare CRM solutions can be more than just a customer data management tool. It brings much more possibilities to provide a better patient engagement experience and improve interaction with your brand. Here are some of the key features:

Automate Resource Management

When it comes to customer interaction, the most critical resource is time. Before digitalization, the internet, and highly complex software (like CRM platform), doctors and medical employees used a manual customer management method. It means that most of the records were kept in a written physical form which is complicated and uncomfortable to store and manage.

Nowadays, medical CRM software systems can store, analyze, and suggest the most appropriate appointment time considering location and purpose. All schedule changes are followed up with notifications and appointment reminders sent to the patients.

Improve Patient Experience

Prudent patient management is good for pharma and healthcare companies and significantly increases customer positive experience and satisfaction. Once all communication between the patient and HCP is structured, clear, and consistent, there’s no tension in getting necessary treatment or consultations.

Additionally, healthcare CRM software is a database of customers’ medical history which is also a great plus for the patients: based on their gender, birth date, the sphere of activity, CRM can notify people about taking medication on time, ask about their well-being, offer discounts, and so on.

24/7 Support

When patients suddenly address their issues, having all the treatment records at your fingertips is good. It makes it easier to provide customers with appropriate answers or medication when HCP can quickly learn about potential issues of particular customers, even if it’s beyond working hours. You can simply imagine how the patient experience affects the communication flow.

Speaking of working hours, modern healthcare CRM systems support chatbots. This technology allows helping patients 24/7 by reassuring them and sharing basic healthcare recommendations.

Patient Acquisition

A cure can not be delivered to the struggling patient if no one knows. Many aspects of a successful pharma business rely on attracting new customers and sharing your medication approach with more patients than before. A healthcare management system will be an excellent addition to your marketing strategies, as it helps to create and promote valuable content and marketing messages to the previously targeted audience. It significantly influences patient acquisition.

Also, it can store communication records and provide access to this data by request to keep the marketing campaigns as consistent and productive as possible.

Collect Feedback

Back in the offline days, most patients only had a few options to get medical help, and there was no significant need to collect patients’ opinions. Today, everyone has a few choices of how they will get their treatment just by opening a web browser, and the marketing game for pharma and healthcare companies becomes more complicated.

Feedback has become an inevitable part of every business, whether you are growing vegetables for sale, making video streams, or providing professional treatment for complex illnesses. Every customer of yours has something to say about your company’s service. Collecting this feedback will open many possibilities for improving your communication tools and operational processes.

Data Security

Any healthcare organization collects and processes a lot of sensitive patient information. It makes such medical institutions vulnerable to data breaches and malware attacks in an attempt to get this information and use it for ransom.

A proper CRM solution is supposed to assure the safety and confidentiality of user data. System administrators should set authorities and define access levels for different types of employees. A properly secured healthcare customer relationship management software won’t allow an accident or intended data breach. Such protection measures significantly improve patient engagement.

Enhanced Personalization

Recent studies show that more patients are becoming interested in healthcare organizations that can offer them some level of personalization during treatment. Data is one of the most critical elements of any process of personalizing customer experiences. With the help of CRM for the pharmaceutical industry, healthcare professionals can now gather any kind of data about their patients and use it to create unique treatments and find a customized approach to each patient that comes to them. 

Reports, Metrics, and Dashboards

Another important nuance of CRM for healthcare providers is analytics. From drug discovery and research to customer interaction, it is important to always stay on track with the current state of things. It’s not only about reporting current statistics but also about being able to analyze data dynamics. It means that you can track how your business is doing within some period of time, how satisfied your patients are, and the productivity of medical workers.

Who Can Benefit From Healthcare CRM Features?

As you can see, the idea of a CRM system is flexible to the required business needs. The healthcare industry provides different services to its customers, whether this is a pharma business that sells their drugs to the patients and healthcare providers directly or healthcare organizations like private or public hospitals.

How to Choose the Best Healthcare CRM Software?

Such various services, united under one industry, require different features and technologies for their digital environment. To make the choice of healthcare CRM software system more accessible, it is usually divided into three categories.

Here are the main types of CRM software:

• Operational, developed for marketing and sales automation, data storing, and service providing; this software is perfect for revenue teams of pharma companies, concentrated on customer communication.
• Analytical — designed for businesses to effectively manage patient data and customer acquisition and retention processes. This is good for pharma companies and healthcare organizations as it allows them to improve drug research and discovery and track customer reactions.
• Collaborative CRM is perfect for significant medical structures and health systems like public hospitals. It will enable healthcare providers and junior medical officers to collaborate effectively on specific patients using electronic health records, developing better customer service and increasing customer satisfaction and retention.

As you can see, the technical equipment of your CRM software may vary depending on healthcare business needs. Once you decide to implement such a system into your company’s daily life, there will be several options, like getting a custom solution by hiring and maintaining a development team or already prepared software with various pre-set features.

What Is the Future of Healthcare CRMs? 

The pharmaceutical CRM market is predicted to be worth 30.13 billion USD by 2023, double that of 2021 (14.70 billion USD). This is caused by the rising need for software that allows healthcare organizations to automate many workflows, boost team productivity, and organize data more efficiently. 

Apart from the continued market growth, CRM software for the pharmacy industry will likely undergo some changes in its features. In 2023, generative AI was one of the most significant trends in the pharmaceutical industry; in 2024, it will continue to be so. Combined with pharmaceutical customer relationship management software, generative AI will enhance patient-HCP interactions, increase personalization, and streamline numerous operations, among other benefits. More companies will start incorporating AI into their products, which is why most pharmacy CRM software will receive at least a few new features, or some old ones will be scrapped and changed. 

Why Healthcare CRM Is Vital to Your Business?

Modern time follows rules of comfort, the complexity of services, and effective communication. It’s hard to imagine any service, especially pharma or health systems, that won’t be using the benefits of digitalization, customer relation management, and patient data analytics.

Proper CRM for healthcare covers almost every issue connected to communication fails, lack of collaborative possibilities, or analytical engines. This will improve patient satisfaction, communication, and internal operational processes.

Reach out to the Viseven team and receive personalized recommendations for your business based on our expertise.

Evaluation of drug efficiency is a complex process that requires Health Economics and Outcomes Research (HEOR) experts to measure multiple indicators to understand the actual market value of the product. Without such an assessment, it would be too risky to launch new products into development or even enter a new market. So what do HEOR experts do for the pharmaceutical companies and what HEOR-collected data is used for?

In this article, you can find out about HEOR meaning, how it contributes to pharmaceutical research, its potential in enhancing patient treatment, what exactly these researchers do, and the future of health economics and outcomes research.

What Does HEOR Stand for and How Does It Contribute to Research?

Health Economics and Outcomes Research – is a common term used for experts who collect patient and medical data that proves the real value of the product, how it can influence the quality of life of the patient, and its capacity to compete against similar products present on the market.

As we mentioned, health economics and outcomes research (HEOR) experts cooperate with different departments and teams assisting in the evaluation of the products. But what is health economics and outcomes research in the real world? There is a number of specific tasks that HEORs fulfill or contribute to that help to increase the quality of the products and, hence, the quality of treatment.

Defining drugs dosage

Even when all stages of the clinical trial are over, there are still many things pharmacists and doctors may learn after patients get access to the new treatment. HEOR serves as a link between patients, physicians, and pharmacists, collecting all relevant data to come up with the most well-balanced evaluation of dosage.

HEOR analysis of patients

The social value of the drug in increasing the quality of life is also an important issue. One of HEOR’s tasks is to determine which patient groups may benefit from the new product or a new healthcare project. In case it is proven that the new product provides effective treatment and can be made available for a vast population, it will contribute greatly to the value of a new product.

Creating health outcomes guide

The entirety of the field data collected by HEORs as well as analytical reports may provide valuable data for the Health Outcomes Guide. HEOR collects all reports about health outcomes from patients and physicians and later provides detailed analytics to healthcare providers, clinical outcomes research institutions or pharmaceutical companies.

Pricing

Pricing should be approved before clinical research of a new drug can be launched. Especially, when we are talking about most over-the-counter drugs that have more popular alternatives. HEOR’s main focus here is to define the most adequate cost for healthcare payers.

Reimbursement terms outlining

Pharmaceutical companies always need to have a plan “B” in case something may go wrong at any stage of development. The unforeseen effects of treatments among some populations of patients can also be an important concern for pharmaceutical companies since even three-phase testing can not give a guarantee that the positive health effects of the treatment will meet the initial expectations.

Marketing and product positioning

HEORs have a clear vision of the groups that should be targeted by the marketers. The data collected about the target group can tell marketers a lot about the patient’s expectations, and the desirable effect of treatment.

What Does Health Economics and Outcomes Research Do?

HEOR department plays an important role in healthcare organizations since the data collected by them provides the industry players with insights and trial data for decision-making and strategic planning.

In itself, HEOR is a suite of disciplines within health economics related to marketing, public health, and social studies. Here are the major fields that HEOR professionals are specializing in:

• Market access
• Pricing
• Reimbursement
• HEOR consulting
• Contracting & account management
• Policy & advocacy
• Epidemiology
• RWD/RWE analytics (Real World Data/Evidence)
• PRO (Patient-reported outcomes)

HEOR experts play an important role in strategic decision-making in pharmaceutical companies. For instance, HEOR-provided value and HEOR data provide evidence that allows determining strategic trends for the company – whether to develop a new product, improve and remarket the existing one, or invest in social affairs and population education.

The list of HEOR competencies includes, but is not limited to, clinical trial design, epidemiology, HEOR modeling, statistics, data mining, collecting and processing statistics and documenting real-world evidence. Also, the HEOR has to be competent in healthcare policies and financial analysis.

How Pharmaceutical HEOR Experts Impact Drugs Engineering

The development of a new product is an immensely costly and time-consuming process – frequently it takes about 10 to 15 years to finish all clinical trials and apply for a license. Since the stakes are so high, healthcare providers need to be sure that the investment made will bring profits.

So, at the end of the day, the HEOR’s major task is to make sure that the patients who get access to the new treatment will get the best health outcomes at the most affordable price. Naturally, HEOR experts take part in the pre-dev stages and assess the process at all following stages.

HEOR impact on drug pricing and marketing

HEOR professional is not strictly oriented on the cost-effectiveness of the new product or a new program, but rather tries to analyze its impact and offer additional insights. Such insights may consider the efficiency, safety, quality, or dosage of the drug. Of course, all those new drug properties are initially evaluated during the clinical trials, however, HEOR professionals may strongly contribute to the understanding of the population’s needs and expectations, and reveal real-life insights on patient access.

So, the HEOR expert helps to “humanize” the development part, introducing humanitarian value together with the key economic benefits of the future project.

Which Healthcare Providers May Use HEOR Strategy Services?

Recently, the demand for HEORs as well as the number of industry sectors that require such professionals has increased dramatically.

Here are some of the sectors that currently require outcomes research HEOR experts:

• Pharmaceutical manufacturers – companies that produce drugs, healthcare products, and medical equipment may use HEOR pharma expert’s services.
• Pharmaceutical distributors – companies that sell drugs and medical equipment may use HEOR-provided data to evaluate the expectations and offer HEOR data-based costs for products.
• Healthcare institutions – public or private hospitals, healthcare providers, and medical centers.
• Health insurance institutions – organizations that provide drugs for healthcare payers.
• Government agencies – as the healthcare system advances, more governmental institutions adopt modern standards for quality assessment and treatment research such as HEORs.

HEOR professionals help decision-makers at companies, governmental or any healthcare institutions to make informed, real-world data-based choices about the launch of new products, adoption of drugs for clinical development, analyzing cost-effectiveness or defining the market cost. With vast knowledge in economic science and recent clinical studies and all instruments for conducting own research of product-related benefits and risks, HEORs improve quality of life and have a high impact on the pharmaceutical industry today.

Types of HEOR Studies

What types of HEOR studies are there? HEOR includes these types of research studies:

• Cost-effectiveness analysis
• Cost burden
• Economic models
• Evidence generation planning
• Clinical/claims database analyses
• Retrospective chart reviews
• Patient-centered outcomes research
• Systematic literature review

What Is the Future of HEOR?

The future of HEOR in healthcare is bright, driven by the explosion of health data from sources like wearables and electronic health records. HEOR’s strength lies in turning this data into useful insights that shape healthcare decisions. It focuses on real-world evidence to understand how treatments work in everyday life, not just in clinical trials. Importantly, HEOR is making sure patient voices are heard, using tools that measure what patients truly value.

In the pharmaceutical industry, HEOR is a key player in innovation. As companies move towards personalized medicine, HEOR helps assess whether these tailored treatments are cost-effective. It’s also changing how new drugs are developed. Pharma companies now use HEOR insights early on to design better clinical trials that show a drug’s value, not just its effects.

Big data and AI are transforming drug discovery, and HEOR is central to this change. HEOR experts use AI to analyze vast amounts of data, helping pharma companies quickly understand a new drug’s potential impact. This data-driven approach speeds up development and makes better decisions about which drugs to pursue.

As healthcare focuses more on value, not just cost, pharma innovation follows suit. HEOR helps companies show that their new products, whether drugs or digital health apps, offer better outcomes at a fair price. This is crucial as the industry expands into areas like telemedicine and AI diagnostics.

Final Thoughts

In summary, HEOR’s future is tied to making sense of the data boom in healthcare. In pharma, it’s not just adapting to innovations like personalized medicine and AI — it’s actively guiding them. HEOR ensures that industry breakthroughs are not only scientifically impressive but also economically smart and truly helpful to patients.

If you are looking for a professional channel for all pharmaceutical and life science-related topics, get in touch with the experts at Viseven by filling in the contact form below.

While healthcare aims to increase patient outcomes, Pharma is looking forward to means beyond randomized clinical trials (RCTs) to assess and promote the value they produce.

Pharma real-world evidence (RWE) has been in practice for decades; nevertheless, advances in digital technologies and analytics offer a new way to apply it. It gives us insight into how patient characteristics and behavior affect outcomes. Thereby, it helps to predict the course progress of the disease, a patient’s response to therapies, or the risk of adverse events. Also, it makes R&D (Research and Development) investments more efficient and accelerates time-to-market.

If any company deploys advanced pharma RWE analytics, success will rely on the proper framework and capabilities chosen. So, further below, we will disclose more info on the nature of real-world evidence in the pharmaceutical landscape.

What Is Real-World Evidence in Pharma?

To understand medical RWE (real-world evidence) and its role in healthcare, we should first understand RWD (real-world data).

Pharma real-world data is any data gathered in routine care delivery taking its place contrary to the data collected from traditional clinical trials where the system controls variability; therefore, it does not represent real-world care and outcomes. There are many different types and real-world data sources, such as

• clinical data from electronic health records (EHRs) and case report forms (eCRFs);
• patient-generated data from the patient-reported outcome (PRO) surveys;
• cost and utilization data from claims and public datasets provide information regarding healthcare services utilization, population coverage, and prescribing patterns;
• public health data from various government data sources.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) characterizes RWE as “the clinical evidence regarding the usage and potential benefits or risks of a medical product derived from real-world data analysis.”

What Is the Difference Between Real-World Data and Real-World Evidence?

Real-world data presents value only when it’s converted into other formats. RWD is raw data that demonstrates the individuals’ experiences and characteristics, while real-world evidence can already be used for decision-making and other processes since it comes directly from RWD analysis. In essence, real-world evidence is created based on real-world data, which is why both often come together, instead of each being used separately.

Why Do We Need RWE in Pharma?

There’s a gap between research (what we learn) and everyday clinical practice (what we do) in healthcare, and it creates dissimilarity between what is anticipated to come and what we really get.

What happens is worth our concern. What has happened before, during, and after clinical treatments, interventions, and HCP live visits is the reality we stay in to drive measurable enhancements in healthcare.

RWE is meant to eliminate those gaps and keep us from going astray. It shows actual data on what happens when physicians treat several patients that do not appear in the homogeneous patient groups in traditional clinical trials. RWE in healthcare provides information on how therapies and treatments will fare in real-life settings, enabling doctors to anticipate the outcomes of new medications and various approaches. In contrast to clinical trials, which are frequently confined to specific criteria, real-world evidence encompasses aspects that might have gone unnoticed or been discovered too late.

That is why RWE has many uses and advantages across healthcare ecosystems.

Why Is Real-World Evidence Important?

It helps to comprehend how a new treatment innovation will behave in the real world rather than within classic randomized trials alone. While RCTs remain the general rule in approving new medical therapies, they often do not show the full picture. Standard RCTs cover a small segment of patients and test treatments in a controlled environment. Moreover, they are costly and time-consuming.

Using real-world evidence, we can improve our understanding of what works for different types of patients in a broader context. It allows researchers to study the safety and effectiveness of drug treatments and other interventions and consider other factors and variables. In addition, RWE generation is more cost-effective and can be more intelligent than standard randomized clinical trials.

Healthcare RWE can provide insight into how treatments work in specific patient subsets that may not have been encountered in RCTs. For instance, with RWE, researchers can study how therapy innovations work for patients with comorbidities, certain age groups, or certain socio-demographic groups. Real-world evidence can also provide what happens to the patient throughout life when isolated data from the randomized clinical trial period cannot be found.

Use of Real-World Evidence in Pharmaceutical Companies

Pharmaceutical companies have been using real data for decades to make informed decisions, respond to external stakeholders’ requests, and improve their drugs’ market position. Recently, growing acceptance from regulators, demand from payers and physicians, and greater familiarity with digital and analytics have enabled some companies to reap much broader benefits from real-world evidence.

Big Pharma Has Already Benefited From It

Examples include Pfizer’s use of electronic medical record (EMR) data to obtain approval to treat male breast cancer and AstraZeneca’s use of real-world data to demonstrate the effectiveness of its diabetes treatment against competitors.

 Is Real-World Evidence a Growing Challenge for Pharma?

No matter how obvious it may sound, RWE is used across the entire healthcare system. From the physician’s office that logs the data to the register, life science researchers who operate with it throughout their studies to health plans, regulators, payers, and policy creators. So, it has a vast impact on the whole spectrum.

• Life Science Research

As traditional randomized clinical trials give out isolated data that does not deal with real-world life, science specialists and biopharmaceutical companies are significant stakeholders of RWE. It complements RCTs by providing additional insights into daily medication use in clinical care, considering the safety and efficacy of innovative therapies.

• Policy Makers and Regulators

The subject allows for monitoring aftermath safety and adverse events; therefore, it provides support regulatory decision-making. Operating with real-world evidence essentially affects the base for medication approvals and drug development acceleration.

• Health Plans and Payers

Safety monitoring, utilization management, and cost/value analysis are elements that health plans and payers derive from RWE affecting studies that inform pharmacy and therapeutic (P&T) committee decisions. Anyway, RCTs will stay necessary for payer decision-making; nevertheless, they begin to often appeal to RWE for better validation because they need to comprehend how the use of medicines impacts value-based care outcomes.

Additionally, they use RWE to assess pharmaceuticals and other therapies’ cost-effectiveness.

• Physicians and Healthcare Providers

Applying RWE to clinicians is more indirect than for other healthcare stakeholders. First, healthcare providers can use the clinical guidelines developed by RWE. Insights from real-world evidence can help care teams understand the disease and help inform treatment decisions. So they enable physicians to create more targeted and appropriate treatment plans for their patients.

RWE is only as good as the RWD used to create it. Physicians and other healthcare providers are vital to the data collection process. During an appointment with a patient, physicians typically use electronic health record (EHR) systems to enter structured clinical data such as diagnoses, scheduled laboratory tests with results, and prescribed medications. In addition, providers submit applications to payers who offer another source of RWD. This data can then be de-identified and used to obtain RWE.

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The drug industry is highly regulated, and its products and offerings have far-reaching impacts on the public’s health and well-being. From the ideation stage to the marketing of the drugs, the pharma market employs medical experts, researchers, and thought leaders. These professionals are known as key opinion leaders (KOLs) in the pharma industry. 

Key opinion leaders play a critical role in the life sciences industry – pharmaceutical companies often engage them during clinical trials and drug commercialization. However, given the current regulatory approval challenges, many pharma companies seek to collaborate with KOLs medical throughout the entire drug development cycle. The role of KOL in pharma is pivotal as they provide invaluable insights that help manufacturers navigate the regulatory landscape and bring credibility during the marketing phase. 

Who are Key Opinion Leaders in Pharma?

Key opinion leaders in pharma provide valuable feedback about new medicines. They are experienced physicians who help shape how a new medication is marketed and its features. They have become invaluable in the drug industry. 

Many healthcare professionals opt to become a key opinion leader (KOL) because it allows them to share and increase their knowledge about the latest innovations, better treat their patients, widen their professional circle, and receive handsome compensation. 

KOLs can be a valuable source of knowledge for patients and ensure that patients receive the best treatment possible.  

Potential and Expertise

KOLs have the potential to reach peers and patients from all over the world. This global perspective helps create other KOL engagement and management activities. Working with KOLs allows you to create referral networks and connect new patients, regardless of location or affiliation. 

A KOL’s expertise can help in making a successful clinical treatment. In some cases, a KOL may be the one who coordinates the clinical trials and keeps everything organized, especially when there are multiple study sites involved. Having such a physician on board can help ensure that the process of clinical trial runs smoothly and successfully. 

The Role of KOLs in the Pharma Market

Key opinion leader is regarded as the mastermind in the pharma industry. They’ve put in the time and research to be recognized by their peers as experts in their field. As a result, they have gained a reputation as a thought leader within their specific niche. Their expert opinions and actions can significantly affect the adoption of a new product/brand or the ability to influence consumer purchasing decisions. 

Key opinion leaders in healthcare are sort of like the avengers of the clinical research world. They can fill many different roles, and their skill sets are highly sought after by those in the know. A key opinion leader can be critically important in helping to educate physicians about a new drug. They can provide information about the working of drugs, which patient demographics can benefit the most, and what treatment regimens are most effective. KOLs can also offer their unique insights as early adopters of new therapies, which can help to identify and create brand acceptance in healthcare. 

Additionally, pharma brands strive to engage with KOLs with extensive expertise in their target therapeutic areas to assist them in participant recruitment for clinical trials and data analysis. These leaders help to identify the unmet needs of both physicians and patients, allowing companies to produce more effective drugs with less side effects. Besides, KOLs have influence over the medical community and therefore can help companies boost their marketing efforts.  

How to Identify KOLs in Pharma?

Correctly evaluating a KOL’s influence and expertise is crucial to developing successful pharma initiatives that engage them. You could use key factors to gauge a KOL’s strength and involvement, including the breadth and depth of their participation, brand adoption, and behaviors. 

• Area of expertise

Before engaging with KOLs, it is imperative to learn about their area of expertise. Do they participate in panel discussions? Have they ever worked in hospices or emergency care? Do they have hands-on experience working with older adults? What kind of academic achievements are they known for? The first thing to do on your list should be to understand their clinical and research interests and contributions

• Knowledge about critical medicine

A KOL in healthcare can be experts in complex conditions associated with increased chances of relapses. For instance, diagnosing and treating such chronic conditions as endometriosis is a time-consuming journey for patients, often involving surgery. However, thought leaders can offer valuable insights, aiding gynecologists in understanding innovative treatments and expediting the recovery process. 

• Influence over the local and global medical community

Some KOLs might offer treatment themselves or receive patient referrals from all over the world. Collaborating with these experts can be incredibly advantageous, extending the reach and impact of marketing campaigns. 

• Openness to adopting new innovations and practices

If you need to improve your drug development or clinical trial process, you might want to connect with KOLs that are early adopters of innovative approaches and treatments. This type of KOLs usually do not shy away from participating in clinical studies and are eager to get involved in early drug assessments. This way, they have a critical role in getting first approvals of medicines and expediting time-to-market.

• Expertise in conducting clinical trials

Pharma companies may also seek KOLs that could refer patients to participate in clinical trials. Their role cannot be underestimated when there are multiple study sites in the trial process. Moreover, they can implement investigator-initiated trials to test alternative approaches to using certain medicines. 

KOL Identification and Mapping 

Before a company can start working with leadership, they must identify which experts have a sphere of influence within their area of interest. To do this, organizations track healthcare professionals who regularly speak at scientific meetings and medical congresses. 

They also monitor medical practitioners whose work is published in respected journals and who are frequently cited by media outlets as clinical experts.

KOL identification and mapping are like finding a needle in a haystack. It’s a quantitative way to locate physician leaders who influence the medical community. It’s about finding HCP leaders with the most influence within the pharmaceutical industry.

KOL mapping is vital for pharmaceutical companies because it allows them to weed out physicians who don’t meet their requirements. This categorization process is done based on factors like location, specialty domain, and influence that help these manufacturers collaborate with the most influential person in that vertical.

Why are Key Opinion Leaders Important to Pharma Companies?

Key opinion leaders in healthcare have a lot of experience, making them influential in their community. That means that KOLs could help create awareness for a new drug and can also be beneficial for pharmaceutical companies to generate turnover and increase sales.  

KOLs help organizations to make precise decisions while purchasing new medicines – like how a rock star’s opinion makes their fans buy more merch from a band they love. 

A KOL in the pharma industry plays an integral strategic role as they help manufacturers to have the desired impact with their target audience since they help bring credibility. They can also help companies by providing buy-in at a hospital or health network. 

KOL Engagement in Pharma

Thought leaders engagement in pharma is beneficial for companies because it allows them to generate data, refine strategy and create persuasive medical and promotional content with the help of an expert. KOL relationships are built on trust and a mutual need for long-term cooperation. 

From this perspective, if a company does not take the time to ask questions internally about what an individual KOL needs, it will not have anyone to speak up for the company’s interests in the relationship.

Build Trusted Relationships With Thought Leadership in Healthcare

Product managers are under a lot of pressure to make decisions quickly. However, by forming relationships with respected experts in various medical divisions, they can gain invaluable ideas that will help them make better decisions and shape their businesses more effectively. 

Thus, KOLs offer their expertise throughout the product life cycles and development, among other things. They can share it via various communication channels like live conferences or social media. In other words, using KOL in pharma marketing can be a powerful tool to popularize their product.

If you’re in the health science and medical market, you know that effective KOL management is important to your success and business. After all, engaging the right healthcare thought leaders can make or break your drug development efforts.

KOL management is constantly evolving, so companies must look for new and better ways to interact with key opinion leaders. But if you can stay ahead of the curve, you’ll be in an excellent position to succeed and increase sales.

Effectiveness of KOL Management

When KOLs are managed well, they can hugely impact a drug product’s success – from the early stages of discovery and research to when it hits the market. You can see the benefits in more persuasive medical and marketing materials, quicker patient recruitment for trials, more vital consumer awareness, and even influencing prescribing behaviors. In other words, managed KOLs can be a real game-changer.

When a pharmaceutical company and a Key Opinion Leader work together successfully, it’s a win-win situation. The company gets valuable insights from an expert, and the Key Opinion Leader gets opportunities for networking and professional development, not to mention the chance to share ideas and learn from others. Go ahead and gather conferences, webinars or create a blog article for social media to combine your brand message with thought leaders influence.

Conclusion

The meaning of KOL in pharma is like the megaphone of the clinical trial world. They help get the word out about trial results and outcomes, which are essential for successful market access and eventual drug product adoption. Consequently, they know the best language to communicate trial outcomes and the most effective platforms to disseminate information to healthcare professionals and patient communities. 

Moreover, when they serve as principals or even sub-investigators in clinical trials, they naturally boost the visibility of the trials to their peers and other decision-makers in the healthcare sector. It helps both boosting high-quality pharma brands and involve more experts to the hottest topics.

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