PM360 DECEMBER 2010

TOTAL PATIENT EXPERIENCE

What Else Is in a Patient’s Shopping Basket? By Bob Doyle

Certain brand teams, like those with a pain, acid reflux, or allergy product, know that over-the-counter (OTC) alternatives need to be considered when assessing market share and creating competitive messaging and marketing techniques. But how deep of an understanding do these teams have of how patients are behaving in and out of the prescription market? If they knew more, how would their marketing programs and tactics change?

To truly understand the competitive landscape, patient influences, and common paths of therapy, brand teams need to know what patients are purchasing at retail stores in addition to the pharmacy. To that end, multiple data that track patients anonymously over time, including medical records, prescription claims, and retail purchases, are being combined. Together, this provides a more complete view of how patient prescription behavior is being affected by, and affects, purchases of other goods.

How Long before Patients Enter the Rx Market?
Often in markets where there are OTC competitors, such as the pain market, the drugs available directly to consumers are not as strong. Patients may be able to control their symptoms with these more mild treatments, but over time, their condition may worsen or they may find OTC products less effective. This is usually the point at which they seek guidance from their physician. But this raises many questions: How long does this progression usually take? What is the patients’ path of therapy? What happens when they visit their physician? Do they return to the OTC market, or do they fill a prescription for a different medication? Or use both Rx and OTC? How does price/ co-pay and the "ability to pay" affect compliance?

In other markets, an OTC drug is used to treat a symptom of a more complex condition or a product helps the patient cope with a symptom. For instance, patients with overactive bladder may purchase products such as briefs or undergarments to help with incontinence. How long before visiting a physician have patients been purchasing incontinence products? After they fill prescriptions for an overactive bladder medication, do they continue to purchase incontinence products?

Once marketers can ascertain how long the average patient remains on OTC drugs or purchases complementary retail products (CPG), they can determine if the timing is reasonable. If not, brand teams—alone or in conjunction with condition-specific advocates—can employ tactics, such as education or advertisements, that aim to shorten the time it takes a patient to seek help from his physician.

What Are the Typical Paths of Therapy?
In order to fully understand the dynamics of a market and where and when a product is used, brand teams need to know how OTC drugs or other products are being used by patients as treatment or as part of an overall plan. For conditions like high cholesterol or diabetes, lifestyle changes, such as changes in diet, are often recommended by physicians either prior to or in combination with medication. In other markets, physicians may recommend or patients may take it upon themselves to purchase OTC treatments.

In either case, the relatively new combination of data on retail and prescription purchases allows brand teams to understand what treatments patients receive before their first prescription. It also allows brand teams to understand what happens after the initial prescription. (Are patients remaining on prescription drugs and abandoning OTC drugs? Are they using prescription and OTC together, or are they returning to the OTC market?)

What Should Brand Teams Do Differently?
The information provided by adding retail purchases into the analysis of patient behavior and market dynamics is most helpful when it provides brand teams with insights that allow them to better implement and tailor marketing programs, evaluate marketing effectiveness ROI, and improve brand performance. While each market is different, there are some applications that marketers across different therapy categories should consider.

FIGURE 1:

Seen here is a sample path of therapy for a patient suffering from gastro-esophageal reflux disease (GERD). After a visit with her physician in January, the patient begins purchasing foods for a modified diet. She continues with the diet change for three months before visiting her physician again in April. Also in April, the patient begins purchasing an over-the-counter medication for GERD. In July, she visits her physician and is given a prescription for GERD that she fills in July and August. In September, she does not fill her prescription but purchases the OTC medication, possibly because of its lower cost.

Tailor Messages and Programs
It’s pretty obvious that as brand teams learn more about their customers (patients), they can more easily determine the best way to reach them and affect their behavior by providing more relevant information and offers. In this case, learning more about purchases made by patients in a market allows marketers to address the different needs that drive patient behavior. For instance, programs aiming to improve adherence—which are particularly popular—should take into account why a patient hasn’t been compliant. Patients who stop prescription therapy may be replacing it with OTC therapy. A message explaining the importance of treatment would have relatively little impact on this group of patients as they already are on treatment. Instead, it may be the cost or side effects of the prescription drugs that have led them to an OTC drug.

In addition, purchasing data is being combined with information beyond just healthcare behavior, such as demographics and psychographics. Segmentation of patient groups using all of these characteristics allows programs and messages to be best tailored for optimal impact on patient behavior.

Address the Purchaser
The patient isn’t always the individual purchasing OTC drugs or prescriptions. In obvious cases, such as with drugs used to treat children, parents are the decision makers in the treatment plan and marketing materials need to be created with that in mind. For example, acne treatments are often purchased by an adult but may be intended for use by the parent’s teenage son or daughter. Utilizing retail purchasing data provides greater insight into who the caregiver is in the family so that marketers can tailor messages appropriately.

Consider Co-Market Opportunities
Knowing what other products are often purchased by patients in a market—those filling prescriptions for a specific drug and competing drugs—presents brand teams with opportunities to work with retailers and consumer packaged goods manufacturers. To reach customers that could be of interest, marketers can create mutually beneficial partnerships with the manufacturers of products that are commonly purchased by patients filling prescriptions in that market. In addition, retailers are always looking for ways to increase sales of "front-of-the-store" products when patients enter their stores to fill prescriptions.

By gaining insight into the OTC drug and other retail product purchasing behavior of patients in their market, brand teams have the opportunity to better appeal to their customers and grow prescriptions.

Bob Doyle is Vice President of Consumer Insights and Marketing Effectiveness at SDI. He can be reached at bdoyle@sdihealth.com