Consumer Strategies for Life Sciences Firms
Historically, life sciences firms have focused on developing (lucrative) relationships with physicians, knowing that the new implant or device or therapeutic will require a physician’s order and that almost every patient will trust their physician’s recommendation. Although pharmaceutical firms invest billions in direct-to-consumer advertising, the need for physicians to write prescriptions makes physician outreach their primary focus. In contrast, medical device firms focus exclusively on physician outreach since the patient is asleep when the surgeon implants the device.
Even so, life sciences firms can use analytics about utilization, demand and consumer preference to inform research and development priorities and GTM strategies.
To transition to a consumer-focused enterprise, life sciences firms must answer:
- What is the total demand for healthcare services from consumers in a defined geographic market? What is the future demand for those services?
- What healthcare services do the consumers in the target market need – and what do they want? How do these services differ across different consumer segments?
- Do certain consumers in the target market have psychographic profiles that suggest a preference for diagnostic or therapeutic interventions over surgical interventions?
- How should GTM strategies be modified at the market level based on the psychographic profiles of consumers in that market?
- Which products are substitute goods for more costly interventions?
Use Case: Measuring Current Demand in Local Markets
Logically, consumers will demand, and physicians will provide, the diagnostics, therapeutics and surgical interventions that will improve their health. To inform strategy and capital allocation, life sciences firms must better understand where, when and how current and future healthcare demand will manifest across service lines at the national, regional and local levels.
In this example, using utilization data, prescription volumes for GLP-1 medications increased 300% nationwide between Q1 2020 and Q4 2022.
Additionally, life sciences firms can target their resources more effectively by understanding how consumer demand for therapeutics varies at the market level.
In this example, using utilization data, the prevalence of Ozempic® utilization is mapped across 50 major U.S. markets, ranging from 2.47% in the Cincinnati-Wilmington-Maysville, OH-KY-IN CBSA to 0.31% in the San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley, CA CBSA.
Steps to Measure Local Demand for Therapeutics
- Internal Planning
Clearly define the objective and scope of the assessment, including the target therapeutic, demographic segments and geographic areas to include in the analysis. Gather feedback from commercial leaders to understand the revenue goals for the therapeutic and the current allocation of sales and marketing resources.
- Curate External Data
Gather external data sources that inform demand for the target therapeutic, as well as competitive products and substitute products or services, including:
- Demographic data, with current-year population and five-year population projections
- Real-time utilization and prevalence of disease incidence rates by ZIP Code
- Assess Trends in Consumer Demand
Measure historic and current utilization of the target therapeutic and any competitive products. Assess how utilization rates and market share have changed over time, identifying key inflection points. Project how population changes may impact future demand.
- Geospatial Assessment
Utilize geospatial data and mapping tools to visualize demand at the market and ZIP Code levels. Assess how demand is growing or declining across key markets. Project how demand might change in the future, based on the projected five-year population of each market.
- Create Action Plan
Evaluate how effectively current sales and marketing resources are allocated to capture consumer demand. Prioritize markets based on strategic importance, profitability and growth rate. Develop an action plan to deploy resources to key markets, including strategies to educate consumers, engage providers and ensure the therapeutic is covered by key payers and employers in target markets.