The Potential Pitfalls of Overrelying on Expert Advice

Today’s commercial lead launching the next big advance in a specific category too often circulates exclusively in rarified air. To put it a different way, their views about the market, prescribers, patients, and their product are almost exclusively shaped by a small group of key medical experts who tend to specialize exclusively in the condition of interest. While this isn’t a new phenomenon in medical marketing, what has changed over the last decade or so is the over-reliance on expert input to shape brand strategy, positioning, and the subsequent promotion. While expert input is certainly invaluable to a brand during early commercialization, an overreliance on their beliefs, perceptions, and inputs limits your ability to design a commercial strategy that excites and meets the needs of the everyday prescriber in your category as well as the patients that rely on them.

There are 4 pitfalls to over-relying on expert advice in shaping your commercial strategy:

1. Innovation Bias – Often the professional bias of a key medical expert is on cutting-edge advances, like CAR-T or gene therapy, versus a more incremental advance, like bispecific T-cell engagers, which provide the community with a treatment that may provide a significant advance over the current standard, while also being more user friendly. This can lead to critical insights that primarily aid in marketing only the most profound advances.
2. Limited Perspective – Key experts are highly respected and influential because of their extensive knowledge in one condition, but most physicians, even those that are specialists, treat a wide range of conditions. This narrow focus from key experts frequently leads them to overlook broader issues that are crucial to the everyday physician. Frequent topics that are overlooked or minimized include: challenges with biomarker testing, coordination of care, staffing to handle product logistics or unusual AEs, prior authorizations and reimbursement, just to name a few.
3. Echo Chamber Effect – Chances are the key experts for your brand are the same set as your competitors, and while they may strive for objectivity, frequent industry interactions color their counsel. The industry winds up creating an echo chamber effect for a condition where we’re all hearing the same perspectives and opinions. This doesn’t result in unique and differentiated feedback for your brand and its unique strategic challenges.
4. Defense of Status Quo – Key experts are frequently responsible for crafting and updating treatment guidelines. New, innovative technologies, such as radiopharmaceutical therapies, may challenge (or threaten) an area of expertise by shifting focus to a different specialty or by overriding prior research in which the experts may have played a part. Relying primarily on expert feedback may not support the ‘challenger’ strategy your brand needs, and it certainly doesn’t support an ability to disrupt the status quo.

While key medical experts can serve as a valuable resource for clinical development and scientific communication, marketers must approach them with a critical eye and consider their potential biases and limitations, particularly when it comes to informing your commercial strategy. Balancing expert feedback with broader community treater feedback and patient/caregiver input will undoubtedly lead to a more informed strategic plan that best represents your brand within the entire market.