New Drug Launch: Impact of KOL Engagement and Data Analysis
Crafting and implementing a successful drug launch strategy has become a challenging feat for pharma companies. Currently, a substantially new drug launch needs resourceful manufacturers, flawless cross-functional coordination, potential clinical expertise, and greater promptness. This renders it heavy for big-shot enterprises to bring a new drug to the market.
A Deloitte 2023 report, informs that due to a lack of product differentiation, a considerable amount of drug launches missed the expectations for big pharma. The same study showcased that around 60% of failed drug launches cited fragmentary and inadequate understanding of the consumer needs and/or market itself.
When a potential launch fails, HCP and Key Opinion Leader (KOL) engagement, critical breakthroughs for patient access, and market penetration are often ignored, affecting the healthcare community and the company’s fundamentals. In other terms, the reasons behind failure can be multi-fold: regulatory nuances, misaligned messaging, restricted market access, or unforeseen market landscape.
In this article, we’ll discuss how KOL engagement renders better launches and how data analytics can bolster their success.
All about KOL engagement and its Impact on a New Drug Launch
Simplifying its overall nomenclature, it can be said that KOL engagement is nothing but establishing relationships with high-profile clinicians and HCPs in a defined therapeutic domain to gain their insight and input in service of a target.
It is seen that pharma teams often leverage KOL’s prowess for several core business actionable, including-
- Devising how to broaden treatment access to patients
- Crafting commercialization strategies
- Designing and synthesizing a clinical trial to attain certain targets
- Mastering how to aggrandize current markets and multiply in the new ones
With time, it is seen that pharma teams who used to solely focus on high-priority KOLs, due to restricted technical and human bandwidth, are now facing the game by embracing engagement tools. Modern engagement tools are enabling pharma teams to bolster relationships with a greater array of stakeholders beyond a particular, focused group of KOLs. Practicing this, they gain far better insights which leverage them to make informed decisions. Recently, it has evolved into a more “healthcare engagement” notion, where the feedback generated from a comprehensive stakeholder engagement program delivers a superior clarification that translates directly into quantitative business value.
There are certain challenges with effective KOL engagement which can be laid down as
- Scalability is an issue when it’s about identifying and managing multiple stakeholder communities.
- Knowledge management and transfer of insights is another significant challenge that calls for a robust systematic mechanism.
- Keeping up with a consistent engagement timeline, or rather formulating one is a big deal. Here, technological solutions are the only way to get through.
- Eliminating trust issues is a significant concern too. When data about products shared with HCPs comes through portals from a particular, biased source, it can be challenging for companies to build trust with these individuals. Practicing omnichannel and two-way communication (propagating information and actively seeking feedback from KOLs) can help build a robust trust factor.
The outcomes of effective KOL engagement can be defined as
A structured system for engagement enables pharma companies to broaden their inputs in securing insights to deliver products that meet the milestones for all stakeholders with high probability.
Leveraging this methodology, companies can become more aware of stakeholder challenges and incorporate insights that outdo their products in the long run. Additionally, it was projected that certain benefits of key players revolve around the product itself- the patients accepting it, HCPs prescribing the same and payers covering it- leading to a known loop, early in the stage, making them comfortable with its treatment, prescribing it and paying for it. This evolves into a comfort zone for all the parties whose capitalization can be correctly executed.
How Data Analytics is a Key Element in the Paradigm Shift of New Drug Launches
A recent study conducted (around the timeframe 2018-23) by an industry expert, based in the US reflects how machine learning and advanced analytics are revolutionizing drug launches. It merely showcased that enterprises inclined toward data have around 45% more market penetration with over 85% accuracy in forecasting the market response.
- The potential of predictive intelligence- With modern analytics leveling the launching game, the industry is witnessing a changing variance in forecasts which has come down from ±25% to ±8%. On the other end, market transitions are addressed within 72 hrs, rather than 15 days which used to be the timeframe.
- Digital transformation leading market success- Platforms exercising advanced analytics can achieve an accuracy of around 90% in predicting the value of prescribers through omnichannel engagement analysis. Such advancements have rendered a soaring 45% marketing insight in launch trajectories as compared to old methodologies.
- Winning the game of time- Time-to-market has never been crucial since Industry 4.0. According to the research, the first 6 months post-launch generally capture 60% of a product’s lifetime revenue potential. And launch preps take around 3 to 5 years by the launch teams. It is seen that several pharma companies are waiting until the last minute to make new drug launch strategies based on phase III clinical data, leading to panicked launch teams striving to organize materials ready by the approval date.
- The Evolved Marketing Pattern- Not only this research but other reports also identified how the market is leveraging fast-mover advantage which has led to compressed timelines from years to months. Drugs entering the market can loop in a 30% market share within the initial 120 days of launch, thus featuring the need for data-driven decision-making to sustain competitive advantage.
- Accuracy in prescribing engagement- Advanced analytics have completely swayed the methodology towards gaining physician engagement. For individual physicians, platforms render around 15,000 data nodes monthly to structure very accurate targeting strategies. Conversion rates touching near to 20% of targeted physicians within the initial 3 months illustrate a substantial plot for sustainable growth. Subsequently, such potential launches have an 80% greater edge in securing first-year sales targets.
- Compliance and quality- With real-time monitoring of manufacturing processes, pharma companies can early detect non-conformities and deviations. As Industry 5.0 is around the corner, enterprises are analyzing production data which is helping them to identify anomalies, considerable quality issues, and trends, thereby ensuring adherence to FDA (GMP) standards. Subsequently, big-shot enterprises are implementing analytics to streamline trial operations while maintaining GCP standards. The cheery on the top for these organizations is that they are capitalizing on data analysis which simplifies the whole methodology of regulatory reporting and documentation by automating validation, data aggregation, and analysis.
Conclusion
To conclude, a successful drug launch hinges on two key pillars: concrete KOL engagement strategy and heavy inclusion of data analytics. Together they prove to empower pharma enterprises to navigate challenges, deliver value to stakeholders, and attain market breakthroughs by practicing more patient-centric approaches. As the industry is shifting to an advanced level of commercialization, fostering relationships and leveraging actionable insights is the only way to refine the launch strategies and stay sustainable.
