IDMA Marketing and Sales Conference 2017 held in Mumbai

The one-day conference highlighted the need to evaluate pharma marketing and discussed about UCPMP guidelines

Indian Drug Manufacturers’ Association (IDMA) recently organised Marketing and Sales Conference 2017 in Mumbai. The theme of this year’s conference was ‘Building and Sustaining a Brand under the New Indian Market Dynamics.’ The one-day conference was attended by professionals from pharma marketing, business development and brand heads.

Vinay Pinto, Chairman, Marketing Committee- IDMA and Executive Director, Wallace Pharmaceutical, welcomed the delegates and gave a brief introduction about the day-long conference.

Salil Kallianpur, Partner and co-Founder, The Digital Transformation Lab and Ex Executive VP, GSK, gave a presentation about the implementation of UCPMP guidelines where pharma professionals from the audience shared their views on the topic. He gave an insight about patients’ view on doctors, who are influenced by pharma companies.

Addressing the need to spend money on research and development, he asked the audience on the amount of money being spend by big pharma companies on sales and marketing. According to him, it is much lesser than what is spend on marketing and branding. He said that if UCPMP regulations comes in, then the global practice of one branded and three generic substitutes need to be followed. The future lies in new mode of commercial model which will gradually evolve.

Kallianpur stressed upon the need to adopt technology. He said, "Today 60 per cent buying decision happens online and before buying anything people do an online research. In this scenario, if we want doctors to prescribe our brand than we need to be aware about our products available online."

Kallianpur cautiously informed and said, "We are forgetting the fundamentals of marketing and always think to promote the brands and serve our customers." He said that there are non-healthcare players like Google and Apple who are entering into the market and before right steps are taken healthcare players will be lost in the deluge.

Prachi Athavle, Vice President – Business Intelligence, AIOCD Pharmasofttech AWACS, during her speech mentioned about the partnership with Medlife and products it offer to pharma companies.

Jasdeep Singh, Head Consulting IQVIA and Asit Sabat, Principal, Management Consulting, gave an insight about the impact of GST on pharma sales management and its effectiveness. Singh briefly mentioned about big brands, which were recently built to drive the market and how a strong launch can lead to continuous acceleration. He also mentioned that going ahead, Indian Pharma Market (IPM) is likely to be shaped by the following key trends and there should be more focus on disease profiles towards non-communicable diseases, health consumerism and increased role of technology. The government’s focus on healthcare is unparallel. Increasing partnership and enhancing players’ role and corporate branding will be the future of the pharma industry.

While addressing the regulatory aspects, Sabat indicated that if the government mandates generic prescription then there are chances that the government will also mandate to prescribe brand names. Hence, patients can take a decision on which medicines to buy. So, the decision power will remain with patients rather than chemists. Informing about the states which were impacted largely due to GST implementation were UP, West Bengal and Delhi, as scarcity of medicines were observed. Moving ahead, he indicated that there are market opportunities in areas of chronic care for pharma companies.

Dr RK Sanghavi, Senior Consulting Clinician, Advisor – Pharmaceutical and Nutraceutical Marketing, stressed on creating innovative products which pharma companies should focus on.

Vivek Acharya, Senior consultant, SynCore, engaged the audience by raising questions which were sector agnostic particularly for brand managers. He also talked about how a marketer can help manage new product development process efficiently.

Dr Vandana Patravale, Professor, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Technology, ICT Mumbai, said that earlier there were no academia start-ups. She also informed that only 18.8 per cent academia have innovations and they are aware about clinical trials and regulatory frameworks. She informed about the collaboration between ICT Mumbai and the pharma industry and how many potential projects are currently undergoing.

The conference ended with Q&A session.