With a large number of prescription drugs available, it is easy to overlook another important part of the pharmaceutical market: over-the-counter (OTC) drugs.
Although small compared to the total global pharmaceutical industry of USD 1.2 trillion market, The estimated scale is 175 billion U.S. dollars, and the compound annual growth rate in the next few years is 6.7%, which is not completely negligible year.
During Covid, the sales of OTC drugs surged because people were reluctant to see a doctor and reschedule elective surgery. Another explanation for this trend is that medical information is now easier to find than ever, and more and more consumers are adopting the strategy of “consult a Google doctor and take more affordable over-the-counter drugs” to deal with a range of diseases.
Drugs can be converted from prescription drugs to over-the-counter drugs, but these Rx to OTC conversions are not particularly common. In the United States, 5 drugs were switched between January 1st and October 27th, 2020. The transition from RX to OTC is a feat that has been successfully achieved because of the need to participate and educate new and diverse stakeholder groups.
Pharmaceutical companies that sell over-the-counter drugs seek the help and cooperation of external experts or key opinion leaders (KOL), just like their colleagues in the Rx department. However, in the consumer field, the main stakeholders are patients, and external experts need to have relevant experience and skills to reach this stakeholder group.
There are two types of external experts who are in high demand in the field of over-the-counter trading:
- A treatment leader with extensive experience in treating patients with this disease. Although experience is important, another quality is also important: doctors need to be excellent communicators, not only in person, but also in front of the camera zoom calls or social media videos. Experts must give people the impression of being kind, approachable, and personable. They must also be willing to spend a lot of time working with different teams within the pharmaceutical organization to help develop a variety of patient-centric resources.
- Full-time health professionals such as RN and NP usually have more practical experience in interacting and consulting with patients than doctors, and can provide important insights based on these experiences.
An effective way to create patient-centered educational materials is to form a consumer-centered strategy group that includes a medical expert, a full-time health professional, and a primary care physician to develop a strategy and support the strategy Specific assets.
Create an over-the-counter trading strategy group
There is no single data set that allows you to identify the ideal person to develop and implement a patient-centric OTC strategy. In order to find treatment leaders, claims data helps identify those who have seen a large number of related patients. In addition, their participation in patient rights groups and/or leadership positions in relevant medical associations can show a strong interest and concern for patients. If available, open payment data can provide an overview of HCP’s other commitments and indicate whether experts have enough bandwidth to participate in the project.
Social media activities focused on reaching and educating patients can provide another problem. Outreach through tweets, relevant groups on Facebook, rich YouTube videos, educational Instagram or TikTok posts can not only provide valuable hints about HCP’s interest in communicating directly with patients, but also provide information about their style , Valuable reminder of the presence and scope of the camera. If their posts are widely shared and commented, and if they interact with followers by answering questions or providing follow-up information, then the HCP is likely to have a real interest in actively working with patients.
It is best to meet with the doctor to assess whether the doctor has an excellent face-to-face and camera presence, but a reasonable agent is to use online resources to study their camera presence, including their own posts and available recordings from conferences and webinars. Thanks to Covid and the consequent shift to virtual interactions and meetings, more of these resources are now easily accessible.
Data-driven expert identification
No single data set will provide all the information. As usual, successful expert mapping depends on integrating data sets from different sources and increasing the observations and insights from meeting experts.
Extracting data from various databases and collecting them in a searchable system is very time consuming. Using a curated database of millions of global HCPs to search, sort and filter experts is a great way to get started, while ensuring that the data is also current and accurate.
The ability to search for reliable information and clearly communicate plans will determine whether you can successfully find the right experts in the over-the-counter market.
Photo: grThirteen, Getty Images
