Focus on the patient.
That's the rallying cry for many life sciences companies these days. And the business models that are often held up as examples to emulate in today's complex healthcare marketplace include Apple and Amazon.
These two companies know the customer. And they understand consumer marketing.
So, should pharma follow the lead and focus its efforts and communications on the patient?
I completely understand the tremendous value of patient centricity and the value of keeping that perspective top-of-mind. But I wonder if patient centricity is more of a medical and clinical construct than the ultimate focus for the pharmaceutical industry. The reality is that the democratization of health is more likely a two or three party system (patients, clinicians and payors) where the complex dynamics vary tremendously from patient to conditon. But I don't believe that pharma is best served by laddering their tremendous, life-saving efforts up to a ubiquitous "innovation for life" tag line. Let's take a closer look.
We often look at differentiation and position from the point of a feature. Then we step up the ladder to how that feature translates to a benefit. Then benefit is translated to a value. Got it? Feature to benefit to value. A simple example is a drug that had rapid systemic absorption. The benefit is more rapid symptom resolution. The value can be more symptom-free time with your family, or as we've seen in almost every therapeutic category, getting your life back!
Now, if you've ever climbed up a ladder, you've seen a warning on the top step--DO NOT STEP! It's dangerous up there and the same is true for the precarious journey pharma takes to that top "value" step. The risk is that most pharma companies have laddered up to an undifferentiated, mushy, feel good point of life-affirming pablum.
Yep. It's innovation for life. Everybody says it.
Our love affair with patient centricity and the power of the consumer goods companies is perfectly fine. Many of these companies have paved the way for innovation and disruption. But I'm concerned that pharma really isn't, in most cases, a consumer goods company and that the value of tremendous innovations (and differentiators) like CRISPR, CAR-T, genomics and devices will be lost to an obsession that's teetering on the top value step of that positioning ladder.
Yes, the endgame is the patient. But I'm not sure that pharma's race to consumerism best serves the company or the customer. Perhaps the solution is less on transformation and more on collaboration. After all, I don't really think that pharma wants to become Apple and even more so, Apple doesn't want to be pharma. (Yes, they want life science dollars.) But today's economy is pushing companies in new and unexplored directions. I just think that pharma should stand tall and recognize that, while market dynamics change, this industry still advances medicine, cures disease and transforms lives. I just hope that people will still recognize this important point of differentiation.
