If you’re like most biopharma companies, increased adherence is one of your critical success factors for 2012. I’m here to tell you that there is a science behind addressing adherence that goes beyond just selecting a co-pay card offer and sending a string of emails to brand users. Would you expect anything less from the developers of Evidence-Based Marketing?
The first step in addressing adherence for your brand is to start by conducting a well-formulated literature search for your category and your product. Recently, we showed a Client the wealth of data published by independent clinicians and academics on adherence with their brand that they were completely unaware of . . .boy, was that uncomfortable!
Even if you don’t find anything in the literature on your brand, you’ll likely find adherence information on the category including known non-adherence factors and overall weighting. Here are the results of a project that we recently worked on for factors and weighting for a specialty care product:
- Cost (27%)
- Side Effects (20%)
- Unpleasant association with medication (20%)
- Uncertainty about effectiveness (18%)
- Forgetfulness (15%)
If this was your brand, that co-pay card you have that’s supposed to be the silver bullet for adherence would likely only address, at most, 27% of the issue. How do we know so much about this? Because, we look to the existing evidence for both a brand and category before jumping to adherence tactics and KPIs.
Don’t understand the science behind adherence for your brand? Give us a call and we’ll demonstrate what’s already known about your category and just maybe your brand.