Everyone who works in pharma is all too familiar with the leaky-bucket analogy, wherein patients who are acquired start to drop through a rather large hole in the “bucket” due to non-adherence. The struggle to retain patients takes place through the use of a host of complex, expensive tactics designed to influence compliance and ultimately lead to better patient outcomes.
However, most analyses have shown that the adherence curve hasn’t changed significantly over the years in spite of pharma’s best efforts and the enormous resources put against adherence tactics. Additionally, many of those tactics have come at the expense of “filling the bucket” with a continuing influx of new patients.
This is where shelf-delivered programs in the pharmacy can really shine. In the nearly 400 matched panel analyses I’ve conducted over the years at Retail Intelligence, Inc. on behalf of Rx EDGE, two things stand out: 1) long-term pharmaceutical marketing programs delivered at the pharmacy shelf help brands acquire new patients, and 2) those new patients continue returning value to the brand.
The Attrition Curve chart below, using 100 patients as a baseline, illustrates this point.
- Adherence programs impact the patient drop-off curve somewhat
- The addition of a shelf-delivered effort from Rx EDGE has the effect of boosting the “base” of patients by a factor of 12%. This percentage increase comes from the average 12% lift in new prescription volume (per matched-panel test vs. control analyses of Rx EDGE Solutions at the Shelf™ programs)
- The shelf effort also increases the refill rate, as determined by additional refills generated in the test panel
- The combined impact of the newly-acquired patients plus the increase in refills creates a net effect of 10% more prescriptions filled
As a result of the Rx EDGE program in this example, more patients are being acquired and subsequently more are refilling and continuing the medication for a longer period of time, thereby “thickening” the curve. No matter what the shape of the curve, marketers will generate more overall prescription volume when they include a pharmacy shelf program in their plans.
Is patient acquisition the new “blockbuster”?
Awareness, trial, and engagement are fundamental to a pharmaceutical brand’s success. And given the relatively short lifespan of a branded pharma product, it is particularly critical to maximize the number of patients reached, drive them to action, and continually fill the aforementioned “bucket”… making it larger to begin with! Acquisition strategies that build the patient base will build the brand ─ and should play a larger role in the marketing mix.
