Brand Building with Physicians Moves into the Cyber Age
By Shankar P.
Pharmaceutical companies are increasingly using Web-based content through customer-service portals to build their brands with physicians, according to results of a survey published in April by Manhattan Research, LLC, a health care market research and services firm in New York City.
“We are continually surprised by the degree to which physicians are integrating technology and the Internet in their daily practice,” says Meredith Abreu Rossi, vice president of research at Manhattan Research. She headed the survey project, “Taking the Pulse v8.0,” which surveyed 1,832 physicians, including 67 in New Jersey.
Rossi says pharmaceutical companies feel the need to reinvent their decades-old model of having sales representatives call on physicians because “there are more reps, and fewer physicians willing to see them.”
The Web portals these companies are building allow physicians to access journal reprints, order samples, download patient education information and even videoconference online with sales representatives, Manhattan Research says in its survey findings.
Dr.Antonio Ciccone, a 15-year family medicine practitioner with offices in Newark, Belleville and New Brunswick, says these portals are convenient for ordering samples, reading reports and getting alerts about drug side effects, among other benefits.
“Unfortunately, there are too many time constraints,” says Ciccone, who is also on the board of the 1,100-member NJ Physicians trade group in Trenton. “The problem with pharmaceutical reps is they all want to see you Monday morning or Wednesday morning, and they show up all at the same time.”
Rossi lists some of the portals set up by Big Pharma companies: Johnson & Johnson, Inc.’s www.JnJGateway.com Hoffman-La Roche, Inc.’s www.RocheExchange.com Merck & Co., Inc.’s www.MerckServices.com and Pfizer, Inc.’s www.PfizerPro.com.
Other New Jersey-based pharmaceutical companies that have begun using similar strategies include Ortho-McNeil Neurologics, a division of Ortho-McNeil Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc. in Titusville (www.topamax-360.com) and Novo Nordisk, Inc. in Princeton, which re-launched its portal (www.Novo-MedLink.com) last year, Rossi adds.
Rossi says the companies hosting these Web portals are purely focused on customer service to the physician community. For marketing to potential customers, these companies use health information portals like WebMD.com, she adds.
Some companies have also used the Web innovatively to promote their products to consumers, Rossi says. Bayer Healthcare Pharmaceuticals, Inc., of Wayne, has a contest to design a carrying case for its oral contraceptive Yaz, in partnership with fashion guru Nina Garcia and the Los Angeles-based Step Up Women’s Network, according to Bayer’s site.
Rossi also pointed to a video contest Bayer has for Yaz on www.WNGTI.com, which features the band “The Veronicas.” Novartis Pharmaceuticals also recently sponsored a video contest on YouTube called “Norton Fears the Flu” for its influenza vaccine, she adds.
E-mail to shankar_p@njbiz.com
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