If I were a sales rep working for a pharmaceutical company, I would be dusting off my resume and scanning the help-wanted ads. A great salesperson can always make a very comfortable living. I envision that most of the sales efforts of these companies will be moving to the web. I have covered this transition in a number of previous notes (see: How E-Detailing May Lead to Greater Knowledge by Physicians about Drugs; Effectiveness of "Direct-to-Consumer" Drug Advertisements; Growth of Online CME Interpreted as Bad News for Pharma Marketers; Pharma-Free CME Activities: Is This the Right Approach?). Below is an excerpt from an article discussing this new facet of this trend -- e-sampling (see: Pfizer Joins the E-Sampling Crowd: How it Assuaged Sales Reps’ Concerns):
Big pharma gives out a lot of free samples every year — $3 billion in 2007 alone. Drug giant Pfizer is now joining rivals Merck and AstraZeneca in distributing some of those samples in response to online orders by physicians. As Dow Jones Newswires reports, Pfizer launched its SamplesDirect program in August. A spokesperson tells DJN that doctors are choosing to “engage and interact” online, so it makes sense to be there. As you can imagine, sales reps weren’t too keen on the notion at first. Big drug companies have been paring their sales forces in order to cut costs as they face a slowdown in growth from the so-called patent cliff and resulting generic competition. Meantime, doctors are increasingly giving sales reps the cold shoulder, with the number of “rep-accessible” physicians dropping by 18% from last year, according to a report released in May. The fear among Pfizer reps was that online sampling would only further erode their job function, DJN reports. But Pfizer reached a compromise with its reps: when a physician places an e-order, it’s flagged to his or her sales rep, who has 48 hours to step in and personally take over the order. If the rep doesn’t act, the order is filled electronically. AstraZeneca and Merck launched their own online sampling efforts in recent years, DJN says. Astra is winding down its U.S. sales force for heartburn pill Nexium, turning instead to call centers and online information. Online sampling of Nexium is expected to be available by the end of the year, DJN says.
It's not that the pharma sales reps were not effective. Nothing beats a one-on-one sales call. It's just that the pharmaceutical companies are trying to reduce their cost structures. The industry is also highly regulated and some of these physician office conversations were making the FDA nervous. Also under attack have been some of the "freebies" that the companies were offering physicians. The web provides an adequate, alternative sales and education channel and, now, the opportunity to order drug samples fedexed to the office. Not much that I can add beyond this other than to suggest that you sell short your Dunkin' Donuts stock. Ooops! The company is privately held by Bain Capital.
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