Sales access to healthcare providers is already hard, but how manufacturers build their commercial and sales operations with patent cliffs looming can make things worse.
First we have to acknowledge that even though patents are granted for 20-year periods, effectively being in market is more like 7 to 10 years according to DrugPatentWatch. In their report, they state:
“The patent clock runs through all of that. It runs through the Investigational New Drug (IND) application, through Phase 1 safety studies, through Phase 2 dose-finding, through Phase 3 pivotal trials, through FDA review, and through any Complete Response Letters that require additional data. By the time an NDA is approved and the drug reaches commercial distribution, a typical New Chemical Entity has consumed 10 to 13 years of its 20-year nominal term, leaving between 7 and 10 years of patent-protected commercial life. That is the real number, and it is the one that drives every revenue forecast, every DCF valuation, and every lifecycle management decision.”
That’s a remarkably short amount of time to convey scientific information to the masses. Why?
Manufacturers don’t can’t go to market sensibly
When the champagne cork pops and you earn FDA approval, something happens to your motivations. Shareholders start getting antsy about ROI after a long investment period. Marketshare capture is paramount. So brands might be inclined to “panic buy” a go-to-market strategy.
Let’s just say, it’s not exactly a time for reasoned spend or best practice optimization. A lot of overpaying and underdelivering happens when you’re asked to go to the moon tomorrow.
For sales teams, they might hire like crazy any warm body in a region. They might establish ambitious (and perhaps outsized) quotas. They might hire any agency that can get them in front of HCPs with lavish dinners. What they often don’t do is really get to know their targets, and utilize a spray-and-pray approach.
There’s a delay in realizing revenue before and after a patent cliff
The average sales rep takes 3 to 6 months to truly onboard into their roles and 6 to 12 months to reach their quota. That’s not just pharma or life sciences. That’s nearly every industry. But for these reps, how many dozens of facts and data points can uncover and deliver in a conversation?
And even if they’re fully engaged with an HCP, there may still be a delay in how that HCP prescribes and revenue hits the pipeline. After all, you can convince someone you have the ideal drug, but they still need to identify a patient who meets those conditions and, potentially, there are insurance hurdles that come into play.
With an inability to measure timely revenue, sales teams can’t just tune and adjust tactics.
Reliance on known HCPs
We’ve talked about Decile numbers before, and how they don’t fully capture the opportunities available. After all, selling to a high volume prescribers is a lot like only pitching movies to Tom Cruise. He’s getting pitched every movie. He’s going to be hardest on your movie, because he can be. And if he were to retire suddenly, there goes your pipeline.
But uncovering under-approached HCPs is time consuming. Or at least it used to be.
The promise of using AI to build meaningful context is something every sales team should consider. And we don’t just mean throwing a dataset into ChatGPT or Claude and asking for valuable insight. It’s about having an organization-wide approach to AI-enabled sales that meets the reinforces the sales strategy, the science, and compliance. It’s about being consistent but also contextually relevant. And it’s about being easy enough that the reps not only can use it but want to.