Don't Just Seek for Approval

In the pharma world, the biggest marketing failures often don't originate with the marketing team. Many companies design their clinical development plans to maximize their chance to gain an approval, but don't ask themselves what the value of approval will be if their brands are not differentiated. That's why so many pharma brands under-perform their forecasts once they reach the market.

I've been lucky enough to work with a number of teams that understood the need to take aggressive risks to get beyond approval. One of the most interesting was Jardiance: it was not really differentiated as the third SGLT-2 to market, but has since built itself into a blockbuster by pursuing cardiovascular data and indications.

Now it is pushing aggressively into heart failure, potentially challenging the blockbuster Entresto. They have the potential to get an indication wider than any competitors on the market, essentially giving a blockbuster drug an additional blockbuster indication. If Lilly and BI had been content to play it safe, and pursue incremental data on top of their initial approval, Jardiance would be a me-too disappointment forever playing catch-up.

The process of differentiating with better data and claims is undeniably driven by the clinical side of the business, but marketers can provide a critical assist by being savvy listeners and understanding both what their physicians and patients need and what treaters are saying about the potential of their therapies to meet those needs. Whether that's conducting a study with a novel endpoint or pushing into a new indication that expands the pool of patients your drug can help, identifying those opportunities can mean the difference between a drug that is merely approved, and one that is embraced.