Welcome to Drug Rep Chronicle. We’re here to help you make the transition to the exciting new times we face Drivers of change O nce viewed both inside and outside the sec- tor as a sheltered safe-haven, Pharma looks very different now than it did just a few years ago. And more changes are inevitable. What are the key drivers of these changes, and how do they affect the drug industry salesforce? The factors driving change can be categorized as financial, customer, or key success. Financial: It costs more to run a Pharma business today than ever before, and revenue is hard- er to get. Data from the third National Pharma- ceutical Congress 1 in Toronto shows that in 1996 our industry spent $17 billion on R&D and introduced 53 New Molecular Entities (NMEs). Eleven years later, we spent $47 billion on R&D, while only 17 NMEs were introduced. Get out your abacus: that means one-third the NMEs, with two-and-a-half times the spend. 4 out of 5 physicians say you may not be taking the right approach to this unique selling opportunity ‘Please don’t make me work another medical conference’ S tudies have shown that 80 per cent of doctors believe they can learn something new as a result of visiting company exhibits at medical conferences. More important, as many as 50 per cent of doctors have indicated that they are more likely to recommend or pre- scribe a company’s drug product after doing so. Medical conferences provide a unique opportunity for pharmaceuti- cal sales representatives to interact with “hard-to-see” high prescribers in a relaxed selling environment. However, to capitalize on this, you must have the “right” attitude, and use the “right” selling approach. Let’s talk about attitude. At a recent medical conference in Toronto, I spoke to a number of pharma sales reps about how they felt. While some were very positive about attending the event, other sales reps described it as “boring” and “a waste of time”, and said they would rather be making calls with doctors on their own sales territory. However, only a few sales reps recognized that medical conferences allowed them to spend a lot more time with each doctor than they would normally get during a sales call What reps need to know about persuading MDs with evidence by Lou Sawaya, MD, MBA Reticulum, Kanata, Ont. M edical practitioners and researchers have developed several approaches for deal- ing with the huge amount of data and evidence generated by the large number of clinical trials and stud- ies conducted each year. Consensus methods, such as expert panels, are a common means of dealing with scientific findings using a qualitative assess- ment of evidence. They allow a wider range of study types to be considered, in addition to those customarily FACES/PLACES: A PHARMA SALES CAREER LED AAMIR SYED ACROSS THE WORLD ........14 SAMPLING: AFTER 90 YEARS, THERE’S FINALLY A NEW WAY TO OFFER SAMPLES ..........8 HOW WE DO IT: HOW PURDUE PHARMA MAINTAINS ITS SALES MOJO ..............10 For Canada’s Professional Healthcare Representatives No. 1, 2009/10 Preview Edition Please turn to page 4 Please turn to page 4 Please turn to page 6 Publications Mail Agreement No. 40016917 All about Professionalism, Performance, and the Pursuit of Selling Excellence
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Welcome to Drug Rep Chronicle. We’re
here to help you make the transition
to the exciting new times we face
Drivers of change
Once viewed both inside and outside the sec-
tor as a sheltered safe-haven, Pharma looks
very different now than it did just a few
years ago. And more changes are inevitable. What
are the key drivers of these changes, and how do
they affect the drug industry salesforce?
The factors driving change can be categorized
as financial, customer, or key success.
Financial: It costs more to run a Pharma
business today than ever before, and revenue is hard-
er to get. Data from the third National Pharma -
ceutical Congress1 in Toronto shows that in 1996 our
industry spent $17 billion on R&D and introduced 53
New Molecular Entities (NMEs). Eleven years later,
we spent $47 billion on R&D, while only 17 NMEs
were introduced. Get out your abacus: that means
one-third the NMEs, with two-and-a-half times the
spend.
4 out of 5 physicians say you may not be taking the right approach to this unique selling opportunity
‘Please don’t makeme work anothermedical conference’
Studies have shown that 80 per cent of doctors believe they can
learn something new as a result of visiting company exhibits at
medical conferences. More important, as many as 50 per cent of
doctors have indicated that they are more likely to recommend or pre-
scribe a company’s drug product after doing so.
Medical conferences provide a unique opportunity for pharmaceuti-
cal sales representatives to interact with “hard-to-see” high prescribers in
a relaxed selling environment. However, to capitalize on this, you must
have the “right” attitude, and use the “right” selling approach.
Let’s talk about attitude. At a recent medical conference in Toronto,
I spoke to a number of pharma sales reps about how they felt. While
some were very positive about attending the event, other sales reps
described it as “boring” and “a waste of time”, and said they would rather
be making calls with doctors on their own sales territory.
However, only a few sales reps recognized that medical conferences
allowed them to spend a lot more time with each doctor than they
would normally get during a sales call
What reps need to know about
persuading MDswith evidenceby Lou Sawaya, MD, MBA
Reticulum, Kanata, Ont.
Medical practitioners and
researchers have developed
several approaches for deal-
ing with the huge amount of data and
evidence generated by the large
number of clinical trials and stud-
ies conducted each year.
Consensus methods, such as
expert panels, are a common
means of dealing with scientific
findings using a qualitative assess-
ment of evidence. They allow a wider
range of study types to be considered, in
addition to those customarily
FACES/PLACES: A PHARMA
SALES CAREER LED AAMIR SYED
ACROSS THE WORLD ........14
SAMPLING: AFTER 90 YEARS,
THERE’S FINALLY A NEW WAY
TO OFFER SAMPLES ..........8
HOW WE DO IT: HOW
PURDUE PHARMA MAINTAINS
ITS SALES MOJO ..............10
For Canada’s Professional Healthcare Representatives No. 1, 2009/10 Preview Edition
Please turn to page 4
Please turn to page 4
Please turn to page 6
Publicati
ons
Mail A
gre
em
ent
No.
40016917
All about Professionalism, Performance, and the Pursuit of Selling Excellence
Drug rep ChroniCle welcomes contributions from readers. In particular, we’re interested in hearing aboutyour personal experiences in the field, and you are especially welcome to keep us informed about your team’snew developments, new appointments, and new practices.
If you’re submitting an article, opinion piece, press release, or letter to the editor for consideration, pleasebear in mind that we select material for publication from a large volume of submitted material, and that we maynot be able to publish your submission in a specific issue (or at all) due to space constraints and other considera-tions.
Our policies are: All material submitted to THE CHRONICLE becomes the property of ChronicleInformation Resources Ltd., and is subject to the company’s usual editorial procedures; We will not consider forpublication any material that has been simultaneously sent to other publications; Only original material or infor-mation will be considered; Payment at our established freelance rates will be offered upon publication for featurearticles and for the following departments:What lies Ahead: Original articles of approximately 500 to 700 words dealing with trends that shape the healthcare
industry; andMy Turn: Opinion pieces of approximately 500 to 700 words, offering original commentary on issues facing the healthcare
industry.Please refer inquiries to: Editor, Drug Rep Chronicle, 555 Burnhamthorpe Rd., Suite 306, Toronto,
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Surviving (and thriving) at medical conferences ......1, 4Most likely, you go to enough out of them, but are you getting enough out of them?
Danny Dean offers suggestions on the do’s and don’ts of working congresses
Persuading MDs With Evidence ....................................1, 6Guidelines are a straightforward way to impress a physician, right? Wrong. Dr. LouSawaya cautions often they do not follow the tenets of evidence-based medicine
Drivers of change ................................................................1,4Welcome to Drug Rep Chronicle. We’re here to help you make the transition to the
exciting new times facing professional pharmaceutical representatives
Sampling in the 21st Century..............................................8A 90-year-old pharma tradition finally gets a facelift, and Stacey Nauss explainswhat that means for bag-carriers everywhere
How we do it... at Purdue Pharma ..................................10Chris Kostka describes how his Pickering, Ont.-based company, a specialty pharma mar-
keter, is succeeding to a greater extent than competitors with a broad focus
Stop waiting and start becoming drug rep 2.0 ..........12Here are some steps to take, to avoid being pigeon-holed as expendable, as Big Pharma
field forces continue to shrink
Faces/Places: Meet Aamir Hussain Syed ....................14A top performer at dermatology specialty company LEO Pharma, here’s one pharma
representative who graduated from two wheels to four
The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.-- Walt Disney
The superior man is distressed by the limitations of his ability; he isnot distressed by the fact that men do not recognize the abilitythat he has. -- Confucius
1 The National Pharmaceutical Congress is amajor event that takes place in March of everyyear that brings together key stakeholders ofthe pharmaceutical industry; see www.phrma-congress.info
Drivers of change— continued from page 1
— continued from page 1
by Lorne MarkowitzManagement consultantand contributing editor toDrug Rep Chronicle
Conferences:You go to enough of them. Are you getting enough outout of them?
Clinical PracticeGuidelinesClinical practice guidelines
(CPGs) are sets of recommenda-
tions and suggested courses of
action usually made by a
group of medical experts.
Their purpose is to help
practitioners deal with a spe-
cific clinical question by
informing them about opti-
mal strategies for diagnosis
and treatment. Guidelines are
portrayed by their proponents
as a strategy for linking evi-
dence to practice, reducing prac-
tice variation and controlling
healthcare costs.
The rapid prolifera-
tion of
guidelines in recent years suggests a
widespread optimism about their power to
effect change. Academics often use
guidelines as an educational tool. Third-
party payers use them as a means of influ-
encing physicians’ practices.
Pharmaceutical companies are equally
active in the design and dissemination of
guidelines, and incorporate them into
their promotional mix when they happen
to favor a particular drug or therapeutic
class.
The persuasive
pow ers of guidelines
are mixed, howev-
er; and physi-
cians’ adher-
ence to them
can vary wide-
ly. A study that
a s s e s s e d
C a n a d i a n
p h y s i c i a n s ’
attitudes about
CPGs found
that physicians
use them less fre-
quently than other
t r a d i t i o n a l
sources of in -
format -
6 Preview Edition
Dr. Sawaya, a physician in Kanata,Ont., is the author of five books on the
subject of industry-physician interactions.This article is anextracted and con-densed version ofmaterial appearing inhis newest release,Super Reps III: ThePersuasion Report. To
order a copy online, visithttp://www.super-reps.com
Persuading MDs With Evidence— continued from page 1
A favorable guideline recommendationcan be a rep’s best friend, but don’t count onthe persuasiveness of any one single review
a physician that may be difficult to see. For more than 90 years, physicians
have relied on sampling to try patients
on our products. For representatives,
there is a responsibility to manage these
samples, whether it is through proper
temperature storage (especially for tem-
perature sensitive products), or check-
ing expiration dates or returns for
proper destruction.
When I was promoting a con-
trolled substance the company could
not provide the salesforce with physical
samples. This made it more challenging
to get physicians to use it in their prac-
tices in order to see how the patient
would tolerate it before the patient had
to incur a financial investment since
there was limited coverage.
The company decided to sample
this controlled substance through STI,
using new SmartSample technology; in
turn the physicians were provided with
branded SmartSamples for patients.
Since SmartSamples are legal sample pre-
scriptions they are given to patients and
redeemed at that patient’s pharmacy of
choice. The sample quantity is taken from
actual pharmacy trade stock which deals
with all issues of storage, expiration, etc.,
and provides patients with added pharma-
cist counselling and drug checks. At the
time this non-traditional way of sampling
was foreign to everyone involved.
As with any change there was resist-
ance at first when I was introduced to
SmartSamples and I wondered if it would
take away from the short time frame that
we have with the physician in a call. I was
worried I would end up spending more
time explaining the program which could
possibly take away from selling my product.
I quickly learned that it took literally sec-
onds to explain at the end of a call as it
mimics all current physician behaviors.
The SmartSample is a small card that
fits in your hand (making it very discrete),
the newest version is folded in two, the
front of it is branded with your product,
once opened, the left-hand side has the
sample prescription and the right-hand side
has a repeat script. The physician is
required to fill in the patient’s name, any
prescribing information, and sign, date it
and provide their medical ID number.
They can also fill out repeats for chronic
therapies which are logged at pharmacy,
saving time for the physician and the
patient if they tolerate the sample. Patients
benefit from a pharmacist checking for any
drug interactions and medication/disease
state counselling which in turn saves the
physician time in their office with
patients. However, the most important
benefit for reps comes with the fact that
the sample is redeemed at a retail phar-
macy in your territory. This has an
immediate impact on your sales and pro-
vides information on where, when, how,
and what was prescribed by physicians
when linked to CRM distribution tools.
Reps try and monitor the movement of
traditional samples in an office, as more
samples are used more patients are try-
ing it (we hope.) But what really happens
to those physical samples once they are
put in the sample cupboard?
This is where SmartSampling made
the biggest difference in my territory.
I’ve been fortunate now to work on
three brands using SmartSample tech-
nology and I’ve seen benefits for normal
Schedule F drugs also, not just con-
trolled medications looking for alterna-
tive sampling. The sales information
which is key can be sent in real time as
all pharmacies report the utilization daily
and it comes in different forms such as
pie graphs that include age and gender
of patients. This information can be a
very useful tool to help with more quickly
identifying key physicians that are prescrib-
ing, as well as knowing the age/gender of a
patient, which helps paint the patient pro-
file to the physician on the type of patients
that are using the product. The information
can also be useful in helping to manage
your territory by obtaining reach and fre-
quency on your targeted physicians. The
sales data also helps by providing an instant
gratification by seeing which physicians are
using your products and how often they are
being redeemed at a specific pharmacy.
As the industry changes we reps need
to adapt and I believe the introduction of
SmartSampling allows for better business
analysis of our territories while still provid-
ing an important access tool to physicians
and patients.
8 Preview Edition
by Stacey Nauss Professional PharmaceuticalRepresentative, Nova Scotia
Stacey Nauss is currently a ProfessionalSales Representative for Women’s Healthwith Schering-Plough Canada Inc. Theviews in this article are personal opinionsbased on Stacey’s career in consumer andpharmaceutical sales and in no way repre-sent the views of Schering-Plough CanadaInc. or any of its affiliates.
A 90-year-old pharma tradition finally gets a facelift
With increasing physician expectations, pharmaceutical selling has never been more chal-
lenging than it is today. However, in several cases, specialty pharma marketers are suc-
ceeding to a greater extent than competitors with a broad focus. One such example of a
specialty company achieving its aims while others struggle is Purdue Pharma. Drug Rep Chronicle
recently spoke with Chris Kostka, sales vice-president at the Pickering, Ont. maker of pain and
CNS Txs.
So, tell us: Just how does Purdue do it?Pharmaceutical companies need to take a scientific approach to salesforce effectiveness, if they
want to be successful.
It all starts with hiring the best people that you can—individuals with high emotional intelli-
gence and a strong customer orientation. To do this, we use a
very sophisticated approach to identify the right people for
our organization who also have those sales competencies that
we believe make a difference in the marketplace.
Pharma companies have always emphasized product and
disease knowledge as an important part of the overall training of
their sales representatives. We take this a step further, by
demanding that each of our sales representatives achieves a per-
fect score on all knowledge tests. As a result, when our cus-
tomers ask a question, we know that our sales representatives
will always provide the right answer … 100 per cent of the time.
In addition, we have high standards in place to ensure
excellent communication skills. By regularly assessing our
sales representatives in a variety of simulated selling situa-
tions, using a validated scoring system, we are able to evalu-
ate the ability of our sales representatives to sell our prod-
ucts effectively and provide them with feedback on how
they can improve.
Sounds like you put a lot of emphasis on salesforce metrics.Yes, we’ve also done a lot of work with our sales managers. using a formalized coaching model, we
regularly measure their coaching skills and the value they provide to our sales representatives, and
we use this data to help them be more effective.
Most important, we interview our customers to get their perceptions, and to ensure that we deliv-
er value every time we are in front of them. This gives us another measure of how effective our sales
representatives are at selling, and what we need to do differently in terms of continuous improvement.
Finally, we work closely with our marketing group to ensure all selling tools that we provide to
our salesforce are aligned with our selling approach, and useful in supporting their product discus-
sions with our customers.
What does this mean, going forward?More than ever, physicians today are increasingly questioning the value that sales representatives
bring to them and their patients.
By using a systematic approach to gather data on how we do things, we are able to identify
performance gaps, and determine what we need to work on to continuously raise the bar, and stay
ahead of our competition.
n Each issue, this feature profiles unique selling approaches and highlights best practices at specific
organizations. We invite your comments and feedback. Write to: [email protected]
Are you fluent in the New Literacy?used to be that if you could sort-of
peck out a periodic call report, and
talk half-knowledgeably about last
year’s John Grisham novel, you had
all the literacy skills required to get
by in your organization. That won’t
suffice anymore, as pharma enters
the age of “non-personal promo-
tion” to multiple channels. Invest at
least 20 minutes learning a couple of
things about the new tools of your
trade. Start by learning the term
“cloud computing.” Next, discover
by Nino AvantiAgent of change, motiva-tional speaker, futurist. His blog: www.tocome.tk
Stop waiting and start becoming
drug rep 2.0According to the industry’s current wisdom, field forces willcontinue to shrink, as drug marketers embrace ‘non-traditional’ channels and tactics. Here are some stepsto take, to avoid being pigeon-holed as expendable
Paul�Tobin, Managing Partner on behalf ofSTI, is proud that Sampling�Technologies’corporate support for Drug Rep Chronicle is
helping to launch the first pharmaceutical salespublication in Canada, that will most certainly
aid pharmaceutical salesforces to excel in theireveryday selling of pharmaceuticals and med-
ical devices.
Stop waiting and start becoming
drug rep 2.0According to the industry’s current wisdom, field forces willcontinue to shrink, as drug marketers embrace ‘non-traditional’ channels and tactics. Here are some stepsto take, to avoid being pigeon-holed as expendable