My well received talk at Christ University, Bangalore (6.8.15)

India: Pharmacy of the world

On 6.8.15 I had the good fortune to give a talk to B Sc students of Christ University, Bangalore. Christ University, Bangalore, is one of the best in India, dedicated Fathers, faculty and staff are aiming to make this university, India’s best and world-class.  Kudos to the sagacious management of Christ University  for making a world-class university with a lively campus, mind-bogglingly splendid infrastructure and a highly motivating atmosphere for learners and teachers. 

Here are some interesting snaps of my participation (giving the 45 minute lecture with a powerpoint to strengthen the message).

During the talk, I elaborated on the following points:

Bright prospects in Indian Pharmaceutical Industry

‘It is a proud and successful industry in India today, exporting medicines to 220 countries in the world.  Over 60% of vaccines are produced in India.  There was nothing prior to Independence.  In the next ten years the pharma sector is expected to grow five times from present Rs. 2.00 lakh crore level’.

- Dr. Subburaj, Secretary, Pharmaceuticals – Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers (IDMA Bulletin, 22 to 30 March 2015, page no. 36

We are talking of an industry, which has approximately, Rs. 1.00 lakh crores sales per annum in domestic market and exports Rs. 1.00 lakh crores worth of products, making the total to approx. Rs. 2.00 lakh crores/annum. 

By 2020, the total worth of business that the Indian pharmaceutical industry is expected to produce is Rs. 10.00 lakh crores, this future growth indicates the excellent business and job prospects, for aspirants and people in the industry.

•        Friends, we are talking of an industry which provides anti-AIDS drugs at 1 dollar a day… Cipla has saved 1 crore lives in Africa through their affordable anti -AIDS medicines: India makes 92% of anti-AIDS medications sold world-wide

•        Today, according to estimates by the World Health Organisation (WHO), every third child in the globe — who is vaccinated through its programme — is protected through a vaccine manufactured in India. No small achievement for a country where the industry forever seeks to import technology

•        Every fifth tablet, capsule and injectable generic drug being used in the world is manufactured in India, according to India’s past Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad

•        Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the world body that helps needy countries, dubs India the ‘global pharmacy of the world’

With the above sparkling opener points, I was able to attract the wholesome attention of attendees and then I went onto elaborate points as mentioned below (with several anecdotes and comments):

The vibrant pharmaceutical industry in India can be divided into three main components: APIs (bulk drugs), finished formulations (branded and unbranded) including vaccines and biosimilars.  (The term Biopharma includes biosimilars and other products such as vaccines, sera etc).

This numbers of above components:

•  As per AIOCD AWACS June 2015 MAT value: the Indian Pharmaceutical Industry is Rs. 90085 crores (July 2014 to June 2015), growth of 14.3%
• India exported $15.2 billion or Rs 94,275 crore of pharmaceutical products in 2014-15, with European Union accounting for a fifth or $3 billion, as per Appaji of Pharmaexcil
• The Pharmaceutical industry in India is the world's third-largest in terms of volume and stands 14th in terms of value
•  India is among the top six global pharmaceutical producers in the world
•  The country’s pharmaceutical industry accounts for about 1.4 per cent of the global pharmaceutical industry in value terms and 10 per cent in volume terms
•  India’s pharma sales are expected to reach US$ 27 billion by 2016

What are Indian pharmaceutical companies doing? 

•        Focus is on me-too products

•        Branded generics

•        Me-too biopharma (including biosimilar) products (using rDNA technology) (Eg., MAB or Monoclonal Antibody business)

•        Bulk drugs

•        Herbal extracts and herbal formulations (including Ayurvedic)

•        Vaccines

•        Importing and marketing (contract marketing)

•        CRAMS: Contract Research and Manufacturing Services; NDDS (Novel Drug Delivery System) research and new product research to some extent 

•        Exports worldwide

•        Veterinary products

•        Food supplements/nutrition products/nutraceuticals

Top 20 pharma companies

 •        Indian pharmaceutical industry is estimated to grow at 20 per cent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the next five years, as per India Ratings, a Fitch Group company

•        The Indian pharma market size is expected to grow to US$ 85 billion by 2020

•     Presently there are 10,500 manufacturing units and over 3,000 pharma companies in India, growing at an exceptional rate

•        India has about 1,400 WHO GMP approved manufacturing units

•        India has been accredited with approximately 1,105 CEPs, more than 950 TGA approvals and 584 sites approved by the USFDA

•   Globally more than 90 per cent of formulations approvals for Anti-retroviral (ARVs), Anti-tubercular & Anti-malarial (WHO pre-qualified) have been granted to India

•       Manufacturing costs in India are approximately 35-40 per cent of those in the US due to low installation and manufacturing costs

•        India accounts for 36.9 per cent (3,411) of the 9,296 Drug Master Files (DMFs) filed with the USA, which is the highest outside of the USA (as on December 31, 2013)

•        Higher spending on R&D, owing to products patents have made India a major destination for generic drug manufacturing

•      Cipla has saved 1 crore lives in Africa through their affordable anti -AIDS medicines: India makes 92% of anti-AIDS medications sold world-wide

•        Lupin is the 5^th largest generic pharma company in US prescription market; fastest growing in Japan and S Africa; global leader in anti TB bulk drugs and formulations

•       Today, according to the estimates by the World Health Organisation (WHO), every third child in the globe — who is vaccinated through its programme — is protected through a vaccine manufactured in India. No small achievement for a country where the industry forever seeks to import technology

•        Every fifth tablet, capsule and injectable generic drug being used in the world is manufactured in India, according to India’s Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad

•      Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the world body that helps needy countries, dubs India the ‘global pharmacy of the world’

•        The global pharmaceuticals market is worth US$300 billion a year, a figure expected to rise to US$400 billion within three years

•       The 10 largest drugs companies control over one-third of this market, several with sales of more than US$10 billion a year and profit margins of about 30%

•        The cost of AIDS treatment — a whopping $10,000 a year — dropped by more than 30 times to just $300 per year simply because ‘affordable excellence’ was part of the DNA of Indian researchers

•      Cipla of Mumbai says it has developed its own methods for producing the three drugs — stavudine, lamivudine and nevirapine — thereby avoiding the process patents owned by the major manufacturers in India

•        The company says it will supply a combination of the drugs to the French charity Médecins sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders) for $350 a year per patient, on condition that the organization provides the treatment free to patients

•       Approximately 70 per cent of the patients in developing countries, receive Indian medicines through NGOs like The Clinton Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Doctors Without Borders, the UNCTAD etc

•      Biologics are drugs whose active ingredients are sourced from living organisms so these products are based on proteins, genes, etc, unlike normal small-molecule drugs where the active ingredient is a chemical

•      Biosimilar sales grew 20% annually to Rs 2,000 crore or approximately 2.5% of overall market sales at the end of November 2014. Sales margins on biosimilar drugs range from 20% to 80%

•       In April 2013, Cipla started selling a biosimilar of the rheumatoid arthritis drug Enbrel with a launch price of $100. The price of the drug from the innovator, Amgen, was $133.

•     Biocon’s CANMab, a breast cancer therapy that is a generic of Roche’s Herceptin, was launched in February 2014 with a 25% discount to the innovator price

•        Bulk Drug Industry is the backbone of the self-reliant Pharmaceutical industry in India

•        The capital investment in the pharma industry is about Rs.35,000 crores

•        Today 90% of the domestic bulk drugs requirement is met by the Indian industry, itself

•        The Bulk Drug industry contributed about Rs. 48,000 Crores worth of exports, during the year 2010-2011 which is growing by over 15%-20% every year

•        Over 45% of the world's bulk drug requirement is met by India

•        The Rs 11,086-crore Lupin Ltd, the largest producer of Lisinopril in the world, used in the treatment of high blood pressure and sold to around 30 pharma companies, both in India and overseas

•        It makes Lisinopril in both bulk drug and finished drug form as well as Lisinopril formulations. Last year, Lupin produced 105 tonnes per annum of Lisinopril API, and this year is ramping it up to 120 tonnes

•        Indian bulk drug industry to grow to US$ 17 billion by 2014
The Indian Bulk Drug industry is expected to grow at a CAGR of 21% to reach US$16.91 billion by 2013-14 as per this study

•         Cygnus estimates the size of the Indian bulk drug industry for 2009-10 at US$ 11.54 billion, out of which exports contribute about US$ 7.5 billion, constituting 65% of the industry

•         The Indian Contract Manufacturing market stood at US$986m in 2009 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 41.7% to reach US$5.63 billion by 2014.

•        “About 1/3rd of global vaccines are manufactured in Hyderabad

•         Hyderabad is already an established bulk drug hub of the country and about 40 per cent of country’s pharmaceutical products are manufactured in Hyderabad”

•        Biopharma is the largest sector contributing about 62 per cent of the total revenue, with revenue generation to the tune of over Rs 12,600 crore (US$ 2.03 billion)

•        The bio-pharma sector comprises vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics

•        India produces 40-70 per cent of the WHO demand for DPT & BCG and 90 per cent of measles vaccine

•        A recent report estimates that the vaccine production sector will shoot to an estimated $871 million by 2016, a sizable jump from the 2011 value of the sector, which sat at $350 million

•        Of course, India will need to contend with another growing vaccines powerhouse in the coming years: China

•        The country is home to 12 major vaccine manufacturing facilities and exports to 150 countries

•        Much of India's vaccines market depends on exports; they made up 65% of the market last year (2012 statistics)

•        Serum Institute of India Ltd., India's No. 1 Biotech Company and the World's Largest Vaccine Manufacturer (by volume, more than 1.3 billion doses) which includes Polio vaccine

•        Serum Inst. is one of the largest suppliers of vaccines to over a 140 countries and  it is estimated that about 65% of the children in the world receive at least one vaccine manufactured by Serum Institute of India Ltd

•        It is estimated the current Indian vaccine market is around $900 million, with a potential to touch $4.6 billion by 2017

•        As per 'Pharma Vision 2020', the Government of India aims to make India a global leader in end-to-end drug manufacturing

•        Manufacturing costs in India are approximately 35-40 per cent of those in the US due to low installation and manufacturing costs

•        Pharmaceutical exports from India have grown at a CAGR of 21 per cent over the last decade

•        Indian vaccines are exported to 150 countries

•        The projected human resource requirement in the Indian pharma sector is estimated to be about 21,50,000 by 2020

TAKE HOME MESSAGE

•        Pharmaceutical industry is presently approx. Rs. 2.00 lakh crores per annum and will reach Rs. 10 lakh crores by 2020

•        Good scope in HRD, Accounts/Finance, Manufacturing (QA, QC, Production, R & D…), Regulatory and Marketing

•        Futuristic… scope for entrepreneurial work (eg., PCD business)

•        Knowledge based profession

•        Global

Thanks to Dr. Ganesh Gaekwadji, Prof. of Zoology, Christ University, Bangalore for organizing 

above speaking opportunity, due thanks to Dr. Anthony, Prof.... at Christ University, Bangalore 

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Smile your way to success

 Above graphic from here.

Smile, it's free therapy - Douglas Horton

Career success is a most important life requirement for the young and old.  A person who has toiled hard, earned rewards and has had a progressive career will look back with a smile of satisfaction in the December of his life.  In fact, the concept of progress is incorporated in the definition of career: “an occupation undertaken for a significant period of a person's life and with opportunities for progress”.  Hence, it is vital to have a career building attitude right from school days.  Career orientation is a crucial part of student life.

Among various careers is the challenging and interesting profession of public relations (PR).  It takes many attributes to practice and gain success in the engrossing organizational activity of PR: tact, proaction, conflict management skills, communication skill, media suaveness, patience, perseverance, relationship management talent … and finally the most important tool in a communicator’s kit – SMILE!

The smile is an important tool in a professional’s life.  It is rightly said, you are not well dressed for the day, until you wear a smile!  The smile is defined as a facial expression formed primarily by flexing the muscles at the sides of the mouth.  The best form of smile is the Duchenne smile: where the smile includes contraction of muscles at the corner of the eyes.  The Duchenne smile is considered the warm and genuine smile.  The smile is essential for socializing, breaking the ice and creating warmth in a relationship.  The Pan Am smile or Botox smile is considered a fake smile – often presented by hospitality personnel and airhostesses, as a part of their communication process.  Hence, it is vital to know how much to smile, where to smile, when to smile, and to whom one has to smile.  Very often smiling at strangers is viewed suspiciously; hence, ‘smile’ is a useful tool that needs to be applied with tact.

Dental science deals with the smile concept with absolute seriousness.  Cosmetic dentistry analyzes the science of smile and applies corrective techniques to enhance beauty of a person by improving the smile.  In fact, beauty is defined as that which gives the highest degree of pleasure to the senses or to the mind… and a smile surely adorns the beautiful face.  A smiling professional has greater scope for success in managing his day-to-day challenges.  So professionals who help create a good smile, like cosmetic dentists, are gaining popularity!

An attractive smile, often described as the pleasing positioning of muscles of facial expression, which radiates pleasant sensory stimuli and creates a feeling of well-being in the wearer and spectator, is essential for acceptance of a person in the professional or social milieu.  The smile sets the start for pleasant, progressive and productive working relationships.  This is in fact a professional power smile, for powerful results! 

A raft of studies by Ron Gutman (ted.com) have shown smiling is a predictor of lifespan and smiling improves quality of life!  Even the unborn in the womb is recorded smiling in 3D ultrasound studies.  Uppsala University, Sweden has researched the smile phenomenon, these researches have shown that it is difficult to frown when you are surrounded with smiling people, no wonder; it is difficult to frown when you are among smiling kids!  Other MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) studies have shown smiling stimulates the reward mechanism in the brain – even better than the pleasure inducer: chocolate.  Penn State University, USA has researched and inferred that when you smile, you appear LIKABLE, COURTEOUS AND COMPETENT.  Smiling is evolutionarily contagious: smiling spreads happiness.  This creates the setting for a successful professional or social encounter. 

Wishing all readers a happy smiling successful life!

End quote:

Mother Teresa said: “I will never understand all the good that a simple smile can accomplish.” What’s the catch? Only that the smile you give has to be big, and genuine!

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Challenges in marketing

Above image from here.

Marketing is a challenging profession.  Marketing is a process that aims to delight customers through creation, communication and delivery of value.  The delivered value is represented by a bundle of offerings: which includes the product(s), image, idea(s), services and other intangibles that create a delightful experience to the customer.  Delight is the emotional state aimed by a marketer in the customer’s mind.  The delighted smiling customer is responsible for consumption of a product or service – and the core of marketing is increasing the consumption.  A delighted customer voluntarily spreads the message of the product, this adds to positive word-of-mouth.  Products and services that delight customers are aimed at satisfying various needs, wants and desires: the process of identifying and meeting these requirements makes marketing a challenging process.

Marketing is a passion, smiling becomes second nature to a marketer, speaking in an ethical manner, generating positive emotions, praising the right points in a product and appreciating interesting attributes of a target customer, and speaking convincingly with logic - is a habit among successful marketers.  Marketing personnel bring life to staid products; advertising and communication activity adds glamour, attraction and creates a pull towards the marketed product by giving hope of a promising and delightful ‘experience-in-store’.

Every human craves to be happy and seeks progress.  Educational products and services for instance, offer hope of a help to achieve higher happiness and progress (improvement).  Entertainment products & services like audio, video, TV channel programs… all are designed to provide the unexpected - and get target audiences hooked onto a sequelae of delightful experiences.  Marketing, verily, is a process of creating delight among the targeted audiences, and marketing verily, creates the reason for existence of a business.  Consequently, businesses create customers!

When a Medical Representative meets a doctor in his clinic, the clinician looks with hope of a pleasant encounter with a delightful personality.   Through his smile, cheerful disposition, detailing points, sampling strategies and in-clinic inputs, the MR, gives moments of knowledge reminders, updates, positive strokes, joy and pleasantness to the doctor.  The road travelled by a MR in his day-to-day working is not a smooth one, on a daily basis; a MR overcomes routine obstacles to his communication activity, and yet creates a sale, and delight to the doctor or chemist.  The same is true of any other marketing person.  Marketers target their activities and messages to customers, they overcome stumbling blocks and ensure the consumption of a product or service, and this ensures delight in the customer.

Marketers face following main obstacles of marketing communication in day-to-day working:

a)      Preoccupation

b)      Defensiveness

c)      Prejudice

d)     Memory failure

e)      Language problem

a)      Preoccupation: The open and uncluttered mind of a customer or doctor is the biggest window of opportunity to a marketing communicator.  When a customer is met when he or she is relatively free from burden of chores, and is able to provide attention to the marketing person, half the battle for winning the customer is done.  Preoccupation is the chief reason for failure of consumption of marketing messages, hence it is vital to meet prospects (target customers) at their time of convenience rather than at the convenience of salesperson.  It means the salesperson has to go the extra mile.  Eg., there are several doctors who are ready to meet medical representatives (MRs) at early morning hours, but only certain MRs are willing to take the extra trouble of meeting the doctor at such times. 

b)      Defensiveness: is the behavior of prospect or customer to avoid receiving marketing messages.  The prospect or customer believes the messages are more marketing-person oriented rather customer oriented.  The potential customer thinks the marketing person is there to sell the product or service and make a profit rather than satisfy the customer.  Hence, it is vital to build bridges of trust: the sales person has to get accepted as a reliable person, this will help reduce defensiveness and ensure better acceptance of marketing messages.

c)      Prejudice (or partiality): is a routine experience for marketers.  For eg., certain doctors show partiality to MRs of multinational companies.  Or caste and creed may be a criterion for making the purchasing/prescribing decision.  Prejudice is a barrier that is surmounted by sales personnel through sheer force of professionalism.  There is no substitute to professional behavior.  The trained salesperson, who represents the product with elan, persuasion and perseverance, will always be in a better position to forge win-win relationships for successful sales transactions.

d)     Memory failure: Preparation meets opportunity, is an appropriate guiding principle for marketing and selling activities.  A prepared MR or salesperson is in a position of strength to handle objections and convince prospects on the benefits of proposed product, service or idea.  Constant revision of product notes, talking points, and technical profile of product or service, ensures there is no memory failure and interactions with prospects or customers will be positive with gusto. 

e)      Language problem: is often a stumbling block in communication process.  It is vital to propose product or service benefits with a vocabulary that matches wavelength of prospect.  When medical products are marketed with appropriate scientific or medical terminology, acceptance of marketing messages is superior, chance of customer or prospect conversion is higher.

Above challenges to marketing messaging are universal in nature.  These obstacles are seen in interpersonal and intragroup communication too.  Ability to handle such objections in communication process will help boost career fortunes. Thanks for reading this post, kindly scroll down to read older posts.

On-job fearlessness: a necessity

On-job fearlessness: a necessity

The most important quality among sales personnel is fearlessness.  A pharmaceutical Medical Representative (MR) has to knock on clinic doors of the most qualified medical personnel.  It can be intimidating!  Yet the MR has to do it with elan, smile, authority, confidence (fearlessness) and tactfully.  Getting the message across to prospects and committed doctors, who are sophisticated, highly qualified, wealthy, intelligent, dedicated to superordinate goals … is a challenging task, the essential requirement for this job - being confidence (fearlessness).

People work due to various motivations, an entire body of literature is available on this issue, most popular being the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.  It is safe to surmise that people work constantly to be in a state of perceived security (absence of fear of loss or absence of need).

In any case, day-to-day working takes place due to several factors including:

a)      Dutifulness

b)      Habit

c)      Fear

d)     Greed

e)      Need for subsistence and meeting family requirements (including children’s education)

f)       Desire for high level experiences (eg., luxuries etc)

g)    Emotional bonding with co-workers or with the institution (where work is being performed)

h)    Work ethic: where work opportunity itself is seen as a reward rather than being an instrument for meeting one’s material and other needs

i)     Work as an engagement for joy, keeping oneself from boredom and ensuring mental well-being (psychosomatic health), for many being away from productive work contributes to negative thoughts, depression and lack of self-worth (loss of self-love)

j)        Need to be secure and comfortable in present and future time

k)      Superordinate goals or higher ideals (eg., workers in NGOs)

Yet the most important quality for performing any job is fearlessness (a response behavior characterized by confidence).  On-job fearlessness has many benefits:

a)      On-job fearlessness is not being a contrarian, anarchist, Mr. Blunt, irreverent or an upstart … it means being comfortable with oneself and others, ensuring effective on-job communication and transactions

b)      On-job fearlessness is infectious and positive: healthy confidence makes others confident.  In sales personnel, on-job confidence, gives an appeal to the salesman’s persona.  It makes the prospects and doctors comfortable - their confidence level too gets a boost. 

c)      On-job confidence (absence of fear) is required for success: fortunes favour the bold!  A courageous salesperson will create confidence in prospects and customers about his or her product.  This confidence in the customer or prospect creates the prescribing decision in doctors, or purchase decision in customers.  Generating confidence in customers and influencers like doctors, is the key for success events

d)     On-job confidence creates a base for adaptability:  Learning from experiences is a key to career growth and ability to contribute.  On-job confidence gives a person the drive for learning and apply them in situations, including critical ones, such as during crisis management

e)      On-job confidence is a morale booster: being confident in the work-spot means having presence of mind and even-mindedness in the face of risks, uncertainties and volatilities

In day-to-day activities, experience of fear and greed are commonplace happenings.  The intensity of these emotions varies, which depends on the person’s psychological profile and actual circumstance.  

Ability to manage these emotions, unlocks opportunities.  A MR may get intimidated with a doctor’s in-clinic intellectual aggressiveness and authoritarian bearing.  The MR may cower down and avoid such doctors – settling to meet less – intimidating (but less business potential) doctors.  Hence, the MR’s fear has created loss of opportunity in this scenario.

If a doctor is intimidating, one can ‘fight or flee’.  Another approach is getting a grip on these emotions and participating in the transactions to ensure win-win relationship.  This comes through training and knowledge (wisdom and experience).  Hence, it is said by Rabindranath Tagore: Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high … where knowledge is free…

Lack of confidence, also hampers doctor-call efficiency and effectiveness of a MR.  A less-confident MR will likely make a postman-call, with very minimal impact.  A confident MR or executive will have more elan.

Fear and greed are facts of life!  They are key emotions to help us understand the situation.  However, using one’s reasoning, patience and imagination, one can control the response behavior to replace fear with cautious confidence, and greed with tempered desire, so that various achievements can be notched up in a balanced way.

Confidence is not being flamboyant … such sales-personnel are often hollow, covering their inner fears with a cloak of aggressive flamboyancy. 

The pharmaceutical industry is an ocean of opportunity for confident participants.  People who know how to manage their fears are exploiting the market opportunities.  In post-independent India, over the 60 plus years, many pharma personnel and institutions have gathered experience, learning, knowledge and hence fearlessness, it is translating into major growth for pharma organizations.  The Rs. 88,110 crores Indian pharmaceutical industry is having a MAT growth 14.1%.  Welcome to confidence, welcome to opportunity … here is the Indian pharmaceutical industry.

UCPMP: a glimmer of hope is the pharmacies!

The confused look!  From here!!


So at last, here it is UCPMP: Uniform Code of Pharmaceutical Marketing Practices!  A code of conduct to reign in aggressive pharma marketers (like me?!).  The UCPMP has provided a very strict and puritanical code of conduct when it comes to providing "inputs" to prescribers.  It is assumed/implied UCPMP is applicable to allopathic and other medical practitioners.  Regarding non-drug products prescribed by doctors (such as dietary supplements, foods etc), the UCPMP is not explicitly expressing its views.  However, the spirit of the document is stark clear, to cleanse the Augean stables in pharma-medical market; and try to give a better deal to the patient. 

Two things of the UCPMP stand out, which impact day-to-day marketing activity:

1) Samples to be provided only on signed and dated request by qualified prescribers - and pharma marketer has to limit sampling to just three patient dosages!  We pharma marketers have to keep a tab and records of such samples given (and better still collect remarks from prescribers) (sales stocks converted to samples without stamp of FREE MEDICAL SAMPLE - NOT FOR SALE, cannot be given!)

2) NO GIFTS OR SPONSORHIPS!  Period!!

Although I got the photocopy of UCPMP (duly signed by Mr. Raj Kumar, Under Secretary, GOI) ... last month ... I am yet to come out of the "shock").  Slowly ... I am doing what others are doing ... peeping into the market and reading the reports in media to size up the situation and start re-plotting marketing strategems!!

The immediate impact of this important document - UCPMP - is that TECHNICAL MARKETING, detailing and training will get a major focus. 

During in-clinic activity and in-stall or booth activity:  it will depend on influence and persuasive power of the pharma marketer and communicator.  Jo dikhta hain bikhta hain.  Mere handing over of samples, gifts and sponsorships will no more provide the market demand impetus or stimulus.  Persuasive communication - based on rationale, creating positive emotions and a rigid ethical format - is the need of the hour.  This is easily said - than done.  It means marketing will upgrade from soldiering to incorporating significant intellectual activity. 

Learning and training will be the lodestones of pharma marketing, if one follows UCPMP to the T, along with it - creative ethical persuasive value-added product promotional materials (that cannot be compliments or gifts!) will be required as collaterals to communication and field activity.

However, UCPMP will cause significant pain to doctors - pharma marketers will also be a confused lot. 

The UCPMP is so serious, it makes the owner or head of marketing organization responsible for adherence to this code of conduct.

Right now - it is a voluntary code of conduct, however, OPPI is lobbying to make it a mandatory or a statutory code of conduct...

IS THERE A WAY OUT TO PROVIDE FREEBIES OR OTHER SUCH TRADITIONAL MARKETING INPUTS?

Oh! Yes!!  The UCPMP is a document focused on disciplining the pharma marketer and prescriber relationship. 

It has left out the relationship between pharma marketer and pharmacies; and the understandings between the pharmacies and doctors.  These market realities are too knotty for GOI to decipher.

Therein lies our opportunity!

We can continue with the bonus offer schemes, provide freebies to pharmacies ... and see if there can be a way to reach prescribers through the pharmacies (without actually contravening the UCPMP) ...

So mum's the word!!  The UCPMP does not use the word pharmacy or medical shop anywhere... only agents/third party distributors are referred to, so the pharmacy coast is clear! 

A new dimension of pharma marketing UCPMP has entered the pharma marketer's arena (along with the Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act, 1954).  Let us hope for the best!

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