Podcast: Pharmacohesion: Insights

00:01:17:20 – 00:02:04:07
Matthew: Hi, I’m Matthew Dickinson, Managing Director of Dice Medical Communications, and today I’m joined by Sandra to discuss insights within our Pharmacohesion platform.
Sandra: Thank you, Matthew. I’m Sandra, Director of Medical Education and Market Access at Dice.
Matthew: Welcome. For those new to our process, Pharmacohesion is our four-step approach: insights drive strategy, strategy guides execution, and results are measured to analyse success.

00:02:04:09 – 00:03:35:00
Matthew: Measurements inform future insights, which evolve over time. Today, we’re focusing on insights. Sandra, how would you categorise Pharmacohesion insights?
Sandra: At a macro level, we focus on clinical, peer, and patient insights. Each drives different strategies, execution, and tactics, depending on the audience.
Matthew: Let’s start with clinical insights, as they’re central to our work. Would you agree that it’s easy to mistake obvious statements for insights, rather than delving into the nuanced understanding of what clinicians think about a brand or therapy area?

00:03:35:00 – 00:05:04:03
Matthew: For example, in areas without existing therapies, it’s obvious clinicians will welcome a new drug. But true insights lie in understanding the nuances of the therapy area and how they shape strategy.
Sandra: We analysed a product that, on paper, outperformed competitors in efficacy. The client believed onboarding was the main barrier and invested heavily to address it. However, deeper analysis revealed the real issue: clinicians were more comfortable prescribing a competitor brand simply because it had been in the market longer.

00:05:04:05 – 00:06:13:03
Sandra: The client spent heavily addressing the wrong problem. True insights come from asking “why” and digging deeper.
Sandra: At Dice, we use tools like advisory boards and steering committees. By collaborating with select experts, we co-develop solutions, gaining deeper insights into their true perspectives. This hands-on approach with clinicians often yields more meaningful insights than informal market research, though we also value and incorporate traditional research methods.

00:06:13:05 – 00:07:40:20
Matthew: Broad feedback from programs throughout the year helps refine strategies by revealing clinical sentiment in each therapy area. Steering committees and direct feedback are crucial for these insights.
Sandra:
One-on-one, face-to-face interactions with clinicians provide deeper insights, enabling expansive conversations and uncovering issues not easily explored online.
Sandra:
Switching to payer insights, understanding where value lies for a product is vital. Pharma often focuses too heavily on individual benefits, losing sight of the broader value for payers.

00:07:40:22 – 00:09:16:22
Sandra: For payers, the focus is on population-level benefits, not individual cases. The key insight is identifying patient segments where value aligns with clinical priorities. Payers aren’t solely cost-focused; they want to understand both the cost and the added value. If a more expensive option delivers greater value, the insight they seek is “how much more.”
Matthew: Pharmacohesion helps question assumptions, enabling sharper execution. Debating and analysing these assumptions ensures strategies are more targeted and effective. This applies across clinical, payer, and patient insights.

00:09:16:24 – 00:10:34:04
Matthew: Patient insights are often underutilised in our industry. While we focus on clinicians and payers, patient sentiment, which evolves from dosing schedules to lifestyle, is sometimes overlooked.
Matthew: When taking a brief from a new client or drug, changes like adjusting the dosing schedule to align with a patient’s lifestyle are assumed to be positive. However, patients, especially those who’ve had a consistent treatment like a bi-weekly infusion for years, may resist changes, even if a new option like an oral pill is available. Changing treatment isn’t always simple. A patient who feels stable and well-managed with their current treatment may not want to switch to a new regimen, even if it’s theoretically more convenient. Patient insights, gathered from both patients and clinicians, are crucial and often reveal unexpected information.

00:10:34:10 – 00:12:08:00
Sandra: Two recent examples highlight this value. In one project on an orphan drug, patient interviews revealed that many patients with a rare disease had been misdiagnosed with Cushing’s disease. This insight helped clinicians reconsider their diagnostic approach when testing for the disease. Another recent example involved biosimilars, where insights showed that some patients did not experience the expected effects from a specific biosimilar. This discovery could help clinicians adjust their treatment choices for these patients.

00:12:08:02 – 00:13:23:15
Sandra: Insights from patients have led to instances where the local health economy allowed patients to switch back to a previous treatment, showcasing the value of patient feedback.
Matthew: Often, I remind clients of the broad range of services we offer, encouraging collaboration. In our medical education programs, when clinicians engage with us over extended sessions, we gain valuable insights into their sentiments. As our business grows, patient and clinician insights are becoming more integral to our work.
Sandra: For instance, in a Medicaid program, key takeaways from clinician sessions have led to changes in their practices, influencing how they structure services and prescribe treatments.

00:13:23:21 – 00:14:39:15
Sandra: The peer-to-peer process helps identify actionable insights, which are key to creating effective strategies.
Matthew: We go beyond insight generation to solve problems and develop strategies, which will be discussed in a future episode. The ability to deliver insightful thinking strengthens the entire engagement process.
Sandra: Without solid insights, there’s nothing to build upon.
Matthew: Insights should go beyond surface-level observations. True insights come from understanding the deeper data, clinical sentiment, and patient experiences, especially within a specific therapy area.

00:14:39:15 – 00:15:52:01
Matthew: Driving insightful thinking helps foster conversations between stakeholders, creating cohesion around the challenges in a therapy area, such as hurdles between prescriptions, payer sentiment, and other factors. When developing insights, we consider the clinical, payer, and patient perspectives. True insights are actionable and pinpoint the key problem to overcome.
Sandra: Insights go beyond facts. For example, market share or therapy position is just a fact, but an insight could be a clinician’s anxiety about managing a specific side effect—something actionable that can inform support strategies.

00:15:52:01 – 00:17:11:22
Sandra: Peer-to-peer communications can be structured around actionable insights, like addressing a clinician’s struggle to explain the risks of therapy, even if minimal, to patients.
Matthew: In such cases, the clinician may lack the tools to help patients understand the risks and benefits clearly. An insight could provide the clinician with a way to explain the therapy’s benefits despite the risks.
Matthew: These insights drive positive progress in the therapy area, highlighting the importance of understanding patient and clinician behaviours. For example, choosing between two products isn’t an insight unless it reveals deeper motivations or challenges.

00:17:11:24 – 00:18:23:07
Sandra: The insight is not just about why a product was chosen, but what concerns or benefits influenced that decision, especially regarding lifestyle and personal preferences.
Matthew: I explain insights to clients through belief shifts. The current belief drives behaviour, such as a clinician’s reluctance to prescribe a more efficacious therapy due to concerns about side effects. This process illustrates how beliefs shape behaviours, like a clinician avoiding a therapy they perceive as risky, which in turn affects patient care.

00:18:23:07 – 00:19:56:20
Matthew: Our goal is to identify the insights that challenge existing beliefs and drive behaviour change. Understanding why a belief exists and how to shift it is key to changing behaviour in a positive way.
Identifying beliefs that drive behaviour can be challenging. It requires skilled professionals, such as account specialists, clinicians, or relations managers, to uncover these underlying belief drivers.
When we articulate these insights clearly, it helps our clients discuss the challenges they face and integrate these insights into their internal strategies, ensuring that every piece of work aligns with overcoming these challenges.

00:19:56:22 – 00:21:14:10
Matthew: Execution should focus on changing behaviour in the clinical, payer, or patient communities. For instance, helping patients understand the rationale behind a therapy’s dosing regimen, even if they aren’t scientists.
Sandra: Prescribing behaviour can be influenced by factors beyond a clinician’s control, such as capacity constraints. Addressing these issues can lead to changes in prescribing patterns.
Matthew: A client recently expressed confusion about stagnant market share despite ongoing marketing efforts and no reduction in budget. Understanding what drives market behaviour is crucial for success.

00:21:14:10 – 00:22:08:08
Matthew: We’re currently gathering insights from clinicians to understand why certain products aren’t being used. The answers can be surprisingly simple, but it’s important to explore the underlying reasons behind their behaviours. Articulating these insights is crucial in the context of Phramacohesion.
Sandra: Constantly evolving and refining insights is a valuable tool, as they evolve over time. This ongoing process helps prevent stagnant or outdated thinking.

00:22:08:08 – 00:23:29:02
Matthew: Beliefs from five years ago might still be considered true, but they need to be reevaluated to ensure they’re still relevant. Constantly revisiting insights is key to staying current. Working across multiple clients and projects allows us to develop strategies, execute them, and measure results. This ongoing process helps us see belief shifts and behaviour changes, ultimately benefiting patients. We can apply successful insights from one area to others, whether it’s payer, clinician, or service delivery, and use insights to solve challenges we may not have anticipated.

00:23:29:02 – 00:24:19:01
Matthew: Thank you for the insightful discussion on insights. It’s crucial that we challenge each other to ensure our insights are actionable and meaningful. Our process of gathering and analysing data for clients continually improves, ultimately helping to achieve better outcomes. It all starts with great insight generation, which is essential for improving results. Thank you, Sandra. In the next episode, we’ll dive into the strategy developed from our insights.