Is Pharma’s business model like McDonald’s? Doing things over & over again without innovation?
McDonald’s is famous for its Hamburger University, a training facility at the McDonald’s Corporation global headquarters in Chicago, Illinois. It instructs high-potential restaurant managers in restaurant management.
More than 5,000 students attend Hamburger University each year and over 275,000 people have graduated with a degree in Hamburgerology.
Sound familiar? Pharma’s training has been on similar lines – hire people continuously and put them through the grind of mugging up essentials of drugs for diseases that the particular company sells.
While the McDonald’s model is ideal for its business of replication, it has outlived its utility in healthcare and drug companies are in danger of being reduced to mere suppliers of drugs to new digital platform businesses unless they learn to innovate.
GST Special Issue carrying an interview with Sunil Attavar - CMD, Group Pharma and President, Karnataka Drugs and Pharmaceuticals Manufacturers Association (KDPMA)
If a business fails, it was an idea that didn’t work. If treatment fails – it must be a botch up. A broken gadget may be beyond repair, but not a patient in a doctor’s hands. From such ungraded expectations stems the potential for things to take an ugly turn.
An unwanted profession dealing with an unwanted condition, namely Ill health:
If possible, we would wish away death and diseases, hospitals and doctors. A hospital is not a holiday resort, but it too costs money. And the scenario of an adverse outcome like death simply becomes unacceptable.
IPM was valued at Rs. 178,219 Cr for MAT Oct’21. The retail sector was valued at Rs. 151,183 Cr for this period contributing 85% to IPM.
IPM Growth for the month of Oct’21 as compared to the month of Oct’20 was 9.7%. This is the lowest monthly growth in the last 8 months after a low growth of 2.6% reported for Feb’21.
Corresponding to low monthly growth, IPM MAT growth also declined slightly after showing a growing trend consistently for the last 7 months from MAT Feb’21. It reported 17.3% for MAT Oct’21 as compared to 17.8% reported for MAT Sept’21.
At 15657.3 Cr, the monthly sale reported for Oct’21 is the 5th highest sale value in the last 12 months.
Q 1. Tell us about your journey as a pharma entrepreneur and what made you venture into pharma and stay on in pharma?
My journey started with two good decisions, one- to be a Medical Representative (MR) in Mumbai, which built a strong foundation and the other, to join Helios, a new pharma company, which was like a baptism of fire. Together, they molded me well.
I was promoted as a Front Line Manager (FLM) within a year. And after spending four excellent years in Helios, I joined Group Pharma as Product Manager (PM) and ever since, it’s been an exciting learning experience.
I was exposed to Pharma very early in life as my dad was in J L Morison, as part of the promoter-team of Warren Pharma. At home, I was the designated telephone operator and order processing clerk. Those were the days of trunk-calls - calling managers and distributors to note down orders. Hence, I was exposed to the excitement of targets, achievements, deficits and campaigns very early in my life. The idea of ‘work-life balance’ was not in vogue. One would look to their parents who worked long hours with pride making it something you wanted to emulate. Things have changed a lot but I would not trade the decision I made, to get into and stay in Pharma.
In the dynamic world of pharmaceutical marketing, staying ahead of the curve is essential for success. As technology continues to evolve, so do the opportunities for innovative campaigns. One area where pharma marketers can make a significant impact is in raising awareness about non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and promoting real-world studies and clinical trials.
The new sparkling DIME (Digi MarketEr) are the ones who embrace digital transformation with open arms and voraciously feed on data analytics to satisfy their performance outcomes with an informed business decision. The benefit of being DIME is that it propels data management out of the hands of individual stakeholders, and puts data sets with insights on to center glass table (Transparent workplace) for informed decision making.
The life of the Pharma marketer has always been a juggling act (Two hands, Three balls, Endless Effect! A Lifetime of Performance) of managing multiple aspects with adept emotional and mental skill sets. All this, while trying to remain sane in a dynamic and confusing world. As the marketer takes time to make sense of his environment, he attempts to find answers to perennial marketing questions such as:
How is the campaign performing?
What are the new avenues to target customers?
Is the messaging, right?
Are the vendors on track with their deliverables?
Are metrics that we track insightful?
Pharmaceutical companies must contend with challenges from supply chain lapses (theft, diversion, S.O.P. deviations, product recalls, reverse logistics etc.) counterfeiting and stringent regulations. These challenges get compounded when dealing across the states and country business operations, besides that not only impact tangible profits but also the intangible brand credibility. In this context, there is also a credible increase in public awareness about the genuineness of medicine (in particular medicine that require cold chain) and their predictability of clinical outcomes.
Providing visibility and full traceability becomes a paramount importance to both the Industry and the Govt. – A fool proof solution not only brings transparency in the system, but can also be a key differentiator, and undoubtedly can create immense opportunities for a competitive advantage.