Beyond The pill
Creating Value & Real Differentiation
Oct 2020 // Allen, Stanton
Get cut-through & new value with a Beyond The Pill approach
In most territories, pharmaceutical (or Pharma) companies are challenged by complex regulatory environments, managed health care systems and an intermediated relationship with those consuming their medical products. Getting real cut-through is difficult. Competition is increasing and primarily attribute (efficacy & safety) based. Therefore, how can Pharma compete differently and win disproportionate market share? The answer is to focus on becoming more patient-centric and to redesign key interactions and engagement points from a “Beyond The Pill” perspective. Here’s how.
What does Beyond The Pill mean?
Pharma is very focused on ‘product’ - the medicines and medical devices sold throughout the world. However, the benefit and impact of those products are generated in an ecosystem of patient, health care provider (HCP), system interactions, structures and processes. Beyond The Pill refers to thinking about the ecosystem of experiences and interactions that a patient goes through from diagnosis of a condition, treatment options and through to remission or cure. It includes considering the role and key interactions of HCPs, family members and other key stakeholders.
Finding ways to compete Beyond The Pill is one of the best ways of changing prescriber and patient behaviour. To do this, wide understanding and consideration of all the actors involved in the diagnosis, treatment and support of patients is critical. This patient-centric approach involves more deeply understanding what drives and motivates patient behaviour and their particular experiences, then designing new ways to engage patients and stakeholders in ways that add value by:
Increasing patient wellbeing and positive outcomes
Empowering carers to more fully understand and therefore participate in a patient’s treatment and recovery
Improving and optimising HCP’s practices making them more effective in treating patients
Provide a hard-to-copy differentiation not based on clinical efficacy
FOUR key elements of Beyond The Pill thinking
Understand and map the experience of patients and HCPs and the key intersection points
Develop new engagement models and services that address key elements of their experience in a way that adds value, cuts costs, reduces time, or increases adherence.
Build a patient-centric culture and set of capabilities to accelerate growth
Use value modelling to understand which specific aspects of the patient/HCP experience to invest in
Working on both the ‘above the line’ - the things your organisation does that people see, experience or buy - and ‘below the line’ - the way your organisation operates - are key to developing a long term competitive edge.
Usually, the best place to start is by mapping the current patient, carer & HCP experience
A solid understanding of the current experience is the foundation of any improvement regime or experience strategy development. Mapping the current experience provides your organisation with a wealth of insights and information and is the basis for designing differentiating experiences and go-to-market strategies. This process goes far beyond customer sentiment and Net Promoter Score (NPS) to look at what it is really like to experience and manage a disease/condition, and what it’s like to engage with, diagnose and treat people - drilling down into what they are thinking and feeling at each interaction. Critically, this process uncovers the key intersection points where patient, carers and HCPs engage - as this is often where Pharma can most positively engage.
To get this level of detail - which is critical in developing an actionable and credible plan - there is a proven method called Experience Mapping (illustrated below).
The output of this process is a detailed and usable set of insights, journey maps and recommendations including:
Patient/HCP Journey Map including key intersection points, pain points and moments that matter.
Deep insights explaining motivations, behaviors and attitudes
Overlay of key econometric data to present where value is potentially being lost or captured along the journey
Key system / regulatory considerations to inform design and decision making
These are a valuable standalone deliverable, but also feed directly into CapFeather’s Target State Experience development work.
Over the last 7 years our people have worked with a number of pharmaceutical companies on becoming more patient centric and thinking beyond the pill. Including:
Rheumatoid Arthritis - Paving the way for a new biologic
Psoriasis - Enhancing in-market product performance
Schizophrenia - Improving adherence to drive better outcomes
Why CapFeather?
We help pharmaceutical companies create defensible value through new and sustainable opportunities that are beyond the immediate horizon.
Ambidexterity - the ability to operate your business now, while acting to operate in the future - is needed for sustained growth. While your team excels at business right now, we help you design the path for its future success.
Our small, expert team partner with your CEO, board and executives to uncover valuable adjacent market positions and exploit them quickly. Unlike other strategy consultants, we believe execution support is critical - so we do more than just build presentation decks. We partner with you at the delivery stage, working to ensure you realise true performance improvements.
Founded in Australia with offices in Europe and the USA, our people have worked across global brands and local organisations, all focused on leading in their market.
