The healthcare system represents an extremely complex dynamic and due to its size can be a primary driver of a country’s economic engine. Within this industry, a new product must face complex restrictions and the attention of a variety of different parties. Before a solution to the patient’s problem may be presented, it has to face a complex path from the scientist at one end to the sufferer at the other. Invariably, pharmaceutical consultants are critical to this journey, as they help all those involved to understand the situation, disseminate the information and make decisions.

A pharmaceutical company faces many challenges, quite apart from the manufacture of its products. The pharmaceutical consulting firm helps the company understand how it needs to educate the consumer. Most often, the pharmaceutical companies are at the cutting-edge of science and help to uncover solutions or possibilities previously unheard-of. If they have not paid sufficient attention to marketing, all the exploratory work may fail as the path through the regulators to the professionals may seem unclear. Marketing also insists that the product features and benefits are correctly communicated to the financiers, principally the insurance companies, who seem to have an ever-increasing role in the dissemination of care.

While regulators will ultimately determine if a pharmaceutical product may be made available and will confirm the associated claims, the pharmaceutical company must be able to market itself, its reputation and its products within the ultra-competitive and distracted healthcare industry. There are a lot of vested interests to take into account and some of these interests may promote older or generic medications, sometimes to the general detriment of the patient. Pharmaceutical companies must create a position within such a difficult marketplace, in order to push science and discovery and their own significant position forward.

Sometimes, the vested interests are very powerful and do not serve the ultimate client best. While healthcare reform and especially its associated finances remain a hot button issue, the pharmaceutical company must do everything in its power to ensure that its lines of communication are open. The physician takes input from many different sources before he or she makes the decision as to final care, including experience, peer input, education and training, patient history, formularies, techniques and benchmarks - all play their role. If you consider that nine out of ten most frequently prescribed drugs are generics, it should be clear that far from being in a position of dominance, pharmaceutical companies must make every effort to ensure that their marketing messages are heard. Generally, pharma consulting firms play their part in helping to establish channels and best practices.

Pharmaceutical companies have been responsible for many of the most amazing discoveries in the world of medicine. Cures that would have been unheard-of a generation ago are now commonplace. Much emphasis must be put on marketing “the word” to ensure that our health care continues to improve.

Alan Gillies is the Director of L2L Consulting, an elite pharmaceutical consultancy firm which specialises in Strategy Development and Implementation Excellence for prestigious multi-national organisations.

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