When launching new pharmaceutical products, the first six months after launch are critical to the lifetime success of the product. Despite huge marketing and sales investments, about half of the pharmaceutical launches in the last 5 years did not meet their first year sales expectations – a gap that is nearly impossible to close later.  

Pharmaceutical marketers know the importance of getting a broad prescriber base to gain experience with the product early. What is less understood, is the impact of local and regional influencers and their peer networks on product adoption. At Cogent Healthcare, we leveraged claims data (most pharma companies already subscribe to this data) to map out influencer networks and analyze product adoption within and across these networks.   

This article highlights some of the key findings from our research and discusses implications for pharmaceutical sales and marketing strategies. By taking advantage of peer-to-peer influence and natural Communities of Practice (CoP), product uptake can benefit from the multiplier effect of faster adoption, deeper penetration, and higher utilization – which can drive early launch success and put a product on a trajectory to long-term success. 

Let’s dive in to explore the research and practical applications. 

How networks impact growth and adoption

Knowledge and behaviors are contagious. Medical practice is no different – it has always been taught peer-to-peer: from shadowing doctors in medical school, to grand rounds in hospitals, to attending CME programs and conference presentations.

Also in daily practice, health care professionals observe and learn from their peers. When a critical mass of healthcare professionals (HCPs) adopt new practices, others will follow and new standards are established. 

We expanded on a number of academic papers that showed the peer influence across HCPs who “shared patients” and used the shared patient concept to determine physician networks and define natural Communities of Practice (CoP). CoPs are not necessarily defined by formal organizational structures, common institutions, health plans, etc. – they can and do result from many types of interactions: academic collaborations, research and co-publications, patient referrals, and of course, today’s modern form of information sharing, social media. 

These healthcare professionals’ networks were the foundation for this research. Different networks create different CoPs – some with very strong connections between its members and others with less pronounced connections; some with one or a few dominant HCPs and others with many more distributed relationships. It turns out that the number of “Hubs” (those HCPs who are most connected within a CoP) and the nature of the CoP has a significant and predictable impact on product adoption.

Identifying Hubs in CoPs with the greatest impact 

Building on the “shared patients” analysis, we were able to identify different CoPs, Hubs within each CoP, and direct and indirect connections with their peers.

Further investigating product adoption patterns showed that the most connected healthcare professionals (i.e., “Hubs”) tend to be the early adopters – i.e., they adopt new medical practices earlier and to a higher degree than their peers. They also have a disproportionate influence on their peers. As such, these Hubs play an outsized role in impacting the spread of information. 

Driven by the Hubs, entire CoPs will reach higher or lower levels of adoption at different speeds. Of particular interest is that the adoption patterns within a CoP are predictable and long lasting. 

• CoPs that reach a particular adoption level by month 6 keep their advantage for years to come. 
• CoPs that reach the same adoption level only by month 12 rarely catch up.
• Those who are even slower than that will never catch up.

Last but not least, we observed a Multiplier Effect at play. Not only do certain Hubs and certain CoPs adopt a new practice or product sooner, and not only does it drive more peers to adopt the product, but it also tends to drive higher usage of that product (i.e., in more patients for each adopter). 

In other words, being around peers who follow a certain practice tends to be contagious and drives others to use it more as well.

Applying these principles to accelerate product adoption and drive long-term success 

So how can pharmaceutical companies experience higher adoption and gains in utilization that act synergistically to drive overall share faster? Pick the right CoPs, identify the Hubs early on, and utilize them in your launch efforts. 

This must begin well before the product’s launch. CoPs and Hubs can be identified before launch and incorporated into the marketing strategy in order to maximize peer-to-peer influence. Sales and marketing become the fuel accelerating the peer-to-peer influence. 

Once launched, it is essential to employ a dynamic targeting strategy to take full advantage of the peer relationships in the critical first 6-12 months of a product launch. The trick is to continually adjust marketing and sales priorities to reinforce the natural peer influence of recently and newly adopting Hubs.  Eventually, this allows the company to  shift from an intense expansion effort to a reduced maintenance effort once CoPs have reached their “tipping point.”

As independent consultants in this space, Cogent Healthcare’s focus is on supporting mission critical commercial decisions for bio-pharmaceutical manufacturers and other health care organizations. We’ve developed the following methodology for building a next-gen sales & marketing capability capitalizing on the natural network advantage:

• Phase 0: Data Requirements & Acquisition: What data is needed? Do you have the data? What is the most cost-effective way to acquire / access the necessary data? 
• Phase I: Network Mapping & Analytics (12-18 months pre-launch): Identify CoPs, CoP properties, Hubs, and peer networks 
• Phase II: Launch planning and preparation (6 – 12 months pre-launch): Develop targeting priorities, sequencing, build capability to dynamically adjust focus 
• Phase III: Post-Launch Optimization (6+ months post-launch): Learn from early months; adjust marketing focus and mix as first CoPs reach tipping point Combine Network Analysis with Patient Journey Analysis, Promotional Response Models and Marketing Mix Optimization for a holistic approach to improved marketing & sales effectiveness and efficiency.

When applied in this research-backed way, you should expect to see higher than average adoption and utilization by HCPs. We encourage those of you in the bio-pharmaceutical space to pay close attention to natural influencer networks and complement traditional sales and marketing strategies with a network based approach.  It can ensure that your product launch far exceeds revenue expectations, and does not become one of the 50% which don’t meet their first year goals.

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