Pull-through more Rx with these 5 pharma marketing tips

Market access leaders and brand marketers know that once a healthcare provider believes in the efficacy of a prescription drug, they want to know about patient access. But did you know just how important market access is? Recent studies show that when HCPs are considering how to treat their patients, at least half of their decision is based on a drug’s level of accessibility.

What an HCP believes about your brand’s cost and coverage can literally determine whether it gets prescribed.

By leveraging the pivotal power of a drug’s cost and coverage, these five market access pull-through pharma marketing tips can help ensure your team is doing everything possible to grow Rx rates.

1. Master access conversations

Pharma sales representatives hear a lot of the same cost and coverage objections. “My patients’ insurance providers don’t cover your product,” an HCP says. “It’s too expensive for most of my patients to afford,” says another.

They worry that if they prescribe your product, patients will come back to them with complaints about out-of-pocket costs or unexpected prior authorizations. And if hurdles delay treatment, their health condition won’t get any better — and could worsen.

These are objections to be met and mastered. They are not insurmountable brick walls.

To master these conversations, arm your team with HCP-specific market access information.

Give your representatives and marketers data about how much your product costs for each HCP’s actual patient population, even among doctors within the same healthcare provider organization or practice. Knowing exactly what the coverage is for an HCP’s patient population allows representatives to gain their trust and put their minds at ease when it comes to market access for your drug.

2. Know your drug’s restrictions

A major pharma brand conducted a study to find out just how much varying degrees of restrictions on their product were affecting pull-through. What they learned was shocking. While they expected to see some impact, they discovered that even a minor increase in drug restrictions led to a major shift in how HCPs think about their drug’s accessibility.

• When the drug restriction was 15%, HCPs assumed it was 20%.
• When the drug restriction was 20%, HCPs assumed it was 60%.
• When the drug restriction was 25%, HCPs assumed it was 90%.

Clearly, drug restrictions exponentially drive HCP misperceptions of coverage.

To combat this threat to pull-through, empower your team to be more relevant and tell individual HCPs what percentage of their own patients will be covered by your brand with no restrictions.

And of course, when restrictions lessen, it can lead to a change in a payer’s formulary. That’s great news! If this happens to you, adapt your market access messaging for each individual HCP within days — not weeks.

3. Question HCPs’ assumptions about your brand’s access

That same drug restrictions study also reveals the incredible power of perception. If an HCP thinks it will be difficult for their patient to fill a prescription for your drug because it’s too expensive or burdened by too many prior authorizations, the HCP won’t prescribe it.

Talk to your team about preventing misperceptions from creeping in by being more relevant and proactive.

Encourage representatives to ask HCPs if they are unsure how accessible your product is for their patients.

Doctors might be trusting anecdotal evidence instead of facts, so open the door to that conversation and give them the facts. Deliver access messages that are designed specifically for each individual HCP based upon their own market access landscape and claims data specific to their patient population.

4. Be where the HCPs are

Having a face-to-face conversation with a doctor is valuable, but it’s not always possible or even preferred. Many HCPs aren’t returning to the frequency of in-office visits they followed before 2020. We have all adapted to new ways of engaging and communicating with prescribers.

While digital marketing on safety and efficacy is likely a key component of your marketing strategy, don’t leave market access pull-through marketing up to sales representatives to deliver alone.

Fully leverage the preferred information channel of each HCP to deliver optimized market access messages.

To achieve 360-degree, multichannel HCP engagement, use tools and partners that promise to reach your audience, such as:

• Veeva
• Doximity
• Biopharm
• Relevate
• QuickPivot
• Aktana
• Medscape
• And more

And when HCPs are open to welcoming representatives in their offices, make sure they have tools that are fully equipped to share cost and coverage information in a user-friendly way. In addition, empower representatives to send emails and print leave-behinds. Bottom line: meet the HCPs wherever they are.

5. Know your competition

One reason many pharma brands become Access Genius customers is that they know their product is a great choice for many patients, and they know their cost and coverage is competitive, but they can’t seem to hit their sales goals. Somewhere along the HCP’s journey to writing a prescription, the competition gets in the way.

To beat your competition, know them inside and out, including HCP-specific market access.

Representatives can use market access messaging to highlight your brand’s advantage versus a competitor’s for individual HCPs where you have a better cost and coverage profile for their patient population. With more relevant access insights, they can present a competitive access message that compares your brand’s access to key competitors’ based on your brand-specific business rules.

Incorporate market access pharma marketing tips in your strategy

HCP-specific market access messaging only works if you put it to work. How are you using your brand’s market access to its advantage? Are HCPs’ perceptions of your brand’s cost and coverage realistic?

Find out how Access Genius empowers pharma brands to achieve radical Rx growth using breakthrough market access data and insights.