case study:
Midsize biotech company secures more than 50% of new patient starts through omnichannel
By implementing a best-in-class customer engagement model, company improves launch readiness and success for a second-to-market oncology therapy
Challenged to launch a second-to-market oncology drug and take meaningful market share from an entrenched big pharma competitor – and quickly – a midsize biotech company faced myriad obstacles. The fact that this would be the first drug the company brought to market created additional hurdles.
The company’s leaders believed they could gain an edge by building a best-in-class customer-centricity model. To execute that vision, the company enlisted Beghou Consulting to help it develop and deploy a customer engagement initiative rooted in omnichannel orchestration. Our team and its data-driven approach guided the company at every step, helping it establish an early foothold and gain market share.
This company’s big pharma competitor had been in the market for 18 months, and the two drugs had similar clinical profiles. To stand out, the company would have to reach customers in highly personalized and engaging ways. The vision for the omnichannel effort was seamless 360-degree engagement with the customer. But executing on this vision required breaking down traditional divisions between digital promotion and field sales promotion and creating a holistic promotional approach.
customer experience
To drive the omnichannel orchestration effort and ensure an optimal customer experience with the brand, we created the Omnichannel Support Team (OST), which included a mix of data scientists, digital specialists, and sales and marketing experts. The OST operated as an extension of the company’s commercial team. It drove predictive analytics, customer targeting and promotional coordination, serving as the link between the various components of the omnichannel program and the different teams involved.
The OST was the facilitator of the company’s customer-centricity model. The core tenets of this model were:
Omnichannel-ready sales force and commercial organization: To succeed with omnichannel, it’s crucial that a company’s entire commercial organization buys in and actively works toward common goals. This company succeeded in securing alignment across the marketing, sales, sales operations, and data and analytics teams.
As the largest and most impactful arm of a company’s commercial operations, the sales force is especially important in driving forward omnichannel orchestration. This company built and developed a sales team that was willing to shift behavior based on analytics-derived insights, proactively share on-the-ground insights to inform the omnichannel effort, and embrace the vision of cohesive interaction with customers across in-person and digital channels.
Building this omnichannel-ready sales force began during the recruitment and hiring phase, but it also included deep-dive training sessions led by omnichannel program leaders. The team used these training sessions to expose the sales force to the data and analytics that drove promotional recommendations. By getting them comfortable with the data-driven approach to promotion and helping them understand what went into the recommendations they received, the company’s omnichannel leaders increased sales force engagement with the omnichannel program. In the end, the sales team responded to two-thirds of omnichannel suggestions and deemed more than 90% of these suggestions accurate and helpful.
“The alerts pointed me in the right direction at the right time!”
“I am very impressed with the depth of information.”
“Great intel!”
“Absolutely accurate.”
Enhanced knowledge of the customer: A crucial piece of the omnichannel effort was understanding at a granular level the patient and HCP/HCO universe. This effort included:
- Analyzing a mix of data (including cross diagnoses, testing results and comorbidities) to determine which patients needed this second-line therapy and understand which HCPs and HCOs treat them.
- Using various analytical approaches to uncover patterns, measure impact, inform opportunities, and optimize promotional planning and execution.
- Leveraging an AI-powered engine to process, sort and uncover insights from unstructured data (e.g., web-based text).
- Developing early-adoption insights, creating a precise targeting strategy and classifying HCPs based on key attributes by augmenting a traditional targeting model with supplementary variables (see table).
data sources
- Rx data for brand and competition
- Profile data (e.g., specialty)
- Promotional data (e.g., sales force efforts and reach)
- Rx data for brand and competition
- Profile data (e.g., specialty)
- Promotional data (e.g., sales force efforts and reach)
- Medical and pharmacy patient-level claims data
- Aggregation of testing data
- Unfilled claims
- Second-in-class adopters
- Participation in events, publications, clinical trials
- Shared patients
- Pre-launch digital engagement
The company’s thorough effort to understand customers paid off. HCPs identified as important via the enhanced targeting model were 80% more likely to write than HCPs identified via traditional targeting models.
Consistent and personalized engagement: A key piece of the Omnichannel Support Team’s work was actively orchestrating the omnichannel effort through regular reporting and communication with field sales force. This communication included automated and manual alerts, pre-call planning tools, sales management engagement optimization tools and market development tools. This coordinated effort helped the company deliver consistent and personalized engagement to customers.
The omnichannel effort helped the company gain detailed knowledge of its customers, successfully engage those customers through a mix of promotional channels and ensure its therapy reached patients in need. Within six months, the company generated:
and contacts
These successes ultimately led to the company securing more than half of new patient starts, an impressive feat for a second-to-market therapy going head-to-head with a big pharma competitor.
To achieve launch readiness and success in an increasingly competitive environment, pharma and biotech companies must break through with customers using tailored, relevant and timely interactions. To do so, they must create sophisticated customer engagement models rooted in omnichannel orchestration. Creating these models requires complete organizational buy-in, integrated strategy across teams, advanced data analytics capabilities and robust technology platforms. This company’s omnichannel-driven success demonstrates the way forward for companies looking to improve engagement with customers and commercial effectiveness.
Learn More
Learn more about Beghou’s omnichannel solutions and watch our webinar, “The Oncology Omnichannel Blueprint.”
