Physician Views: Which diabetes company does the best marketing job? What is key for companies launching products?
The importance of marketing is increasingly coming to the fore as diabetes-focused companies battle for market superiority. AstraZeneca, Merck & Co. and Novo Nordisk have all expanded their diabetes sales force numbers in recent months, going against the grain of most of the pharmaceutical industry. In an update of a poll run in January looking at physician detailing, this week’s FirstWord Physician Views poll investigates which companies are best at physician marketing in the diabetes space.
Notably, failure to gain approval for Tresiba in the US has led Novo Nordisk to reallocate its marketing spend to aggressively up their promotional effort behind other products such as Victoza. In response, other key players within the diabetes market have increases sales force numbers, entered partnerships or offered more discounts (see Spotlight On: Diabetes marketing battle heats up as hostilities intensify).
With a number of new therapies also entering the market, such as the SGLT-2 inhibitors Invokana (canagliflozin; Johnson & Johnson/Mitsubishi Tanabe) and Forxiga (dapagliflozin; Bristol-Myers Squibb/AstraZeneca), and with Eli Lilly poised to add two viable competitors to the existing GLP-1 market (dulaglutide) and the SGLT-2 space (empagliflozin), competition in the diabetes field is heating up. FirstWord will investigate what prescribers find most important for launch in terms of detailing.
However, amongst the individual classes there appears to be a lack of distinguishing features that clearly differentiate one drug from another and with competition set to increase, a marketing battle will ensue as developers try and out do each other. FirstWord will ask US and 5EU (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK)-based endocrinologists, which are the best detailing diabetes companies and drugs and what factors support this view.
This week's FirstWord Physician Views poll will ask:
Notably, failure to gain approval for Tresiba in the US has led Novo Nordisk to reallocate its marketing spend to aggressively up their promotional effort behind other products such as Victoza. In response, other key players within the diabetes market have increases sales force numbers, entered partnerships or offered more discounts (see Spotlight On: Diabetes marketing battle heats up as hostilities intensify).
With a number of new therapies also entering the market, such as the SGLT-2 inhibitors Invokana (canagliflozin; Johnson & Johnson/Mitsubishi Tanabe) and Forxiga (dapagliflozin; Bristol-Myers Squibb/AstraZeneca), and with Eli Lilly poised to add two viable competitors to the existing GLP-1 market (dulaglutide) and the SGLT-2 space (empagliflozin), competition in the diabetes field is heating up. FirstWord will investigate what prescribers find most important for launch in terms of detailing.
However, amongst the individual classes there appears to be a lack of distinguishing features that clearly differentiate one drug from another and with competition set to increase, a marketing battle will ensue as developers try and out do each other. FirstWord will ask US and 5EU (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK)-based endocrinologists, which are the best detailing diabetes companies and drugs and what factors support this view.
This week's FirstWord Physician Views poll will ask:
- What company do you believe provides you with the most comprehensive and satisfactory approach in terms of product detailing?
- What individual prescription diabetes product has been most effectively promoted to you over the past year?
- Which reason best describes why you chose that product?
- What one thing would improve the quality of your general interaction with pharmaceutical industry sales representatives?
- At product launch, which is the most important factor of detailing for you?
