Pharma Company Overcomes Launch Challenges With Patient-Centric Strategy

Client Challenge 

An international pharmaceutical company launched a treatment for a dermatological disease in the United States and the European Union (EU). Following the launch, did not see the anticipated prescription and adherence rates, and also experienced lower sales than expected.

To achieve commercial success with this treatment, the client needed to understand why these issues occurred and sought solutions to correct them. Their Global Marketing team analyzed the situation from both the healthcare provider (HCP) and payer perspectives but did not uncover what was driving the problems.

The client selected Alira Health for this project based on their innovative patient-centric approach to the problem and robust track record in designing and implementing strategies backed up by data-driven methodologies.

Our Approach 

The Alira Health Patient Engagement team proposed to solve the problem by looking at the situation from the patient perspective. An understanding of the patient journey was necessary as a basis for strategic decision-making.

The Alira Health Patient Engagement team interviewed a pool of patients with this condition to assess their experience with the disease, their experience with currently available treatments, and their unmet needs and pain points. Armed with this new understanding of the patient journey, the problem became clear. All the patients reported negative experiences with the class of treatment and were reluctant to try a similar product. Therefore, HCPs were not prescribing the client’s treatment.

Next, the Alira Health Patient Engagement team ranked the information to develop patient-centric strategies that addressed both the client’s challenges and the unmet needs of patients.

Outcomes 

With Alira Health’s help, the client’s Global Marketing team identified the drivers behind the challenges they faced with the product launch and developed solutions to address the true patient needs that mapped to the patient journey.

Key Success Factors 

The Alira Health Patient Engagement team documented and analyzed the patient journey and captured the patient’s unmet needs. They did not just detect the problem that affected the client’s product launch; they created powerful added value by developing a patient-centric strategy for the product based on prioritized solutions for both stakeholders – the pharma company and the patients. The diverse background and knowledge of Alira Health’s patient engagement experts, including scientists, engineers, designers, and medical specialists, helped them uncover the nuances of the patient perspective and translate that understanding into a robust patient-centric strategy.

Learn more about developing a patient-centric product strategy.