Is pharma overgrazing the selling field?

Has the pharmaceutical and biotech industry overextended its signature sales model? Is the selling field now overgrazed and producing less bounty for all? Could the inaccessible-physician problem be customers' way of telling the pharmaceutical industry that the current state of personal promotion is not meeting their needs as well as in the past? Data from RepReview 2007, a study of pharma and biotech sales reps, conducted by G & S Research in partnership with Pharmaceutical Representative magazine, indicates ... maybe.

According to the National Association of Pharma Sales Reps, there are approximately 93,700 pharmaceutical and biotech sales reps in the United States pursuing some 830,000 prescribers. Overall, that's an average of approximately 8.9 prescribers per representative. In reality, though, each representative typically has a call list of between 100 and 200 physicians. Reps try to call on these physicians in roughly four-to-six-week cycles. That means there's significant overlap.

The consequence is that a typical physician is bombarded by reps — some competitive and some from the same company – covering the same product. Particularly for an over-taxed physician, this situation must become tiresome. And that seems to be the case. Due, in part, to the volume of reps who come calling on any given day, many practices have set limits on appointments, or closed their doors to representatives altogether. Even in those practices without specific limits, reps are elbowing through a crowd of competitors who are also trying to get physician attention. This makes it difficult to stand out and influence prescribing decisions.

RepReview 2007 was designed to find out what's really happening on the pharma selling field. The study gathered the perspective and insight from those on the front line of the industry, as sales reps and their managers are in the best possible position to describe the realities of the current selling environment and the likely drivers of change.

The study verifies what industry professionals have either known or speculated for years — that a strong relationship between a sales rep and physician results in better access and a greater share of patients. It further confirms that developing this type of relationship is getting more and more difficult. Given the saturation of reps in physician offices, as well as managed-care parameters, PhRMA guidelines and industry regulations, and other marketplace pressures, relationship-building is no walk in the park.

The value of friendship

Figure 1

The benefits for those who can earn the trust of physicians and forge a genuine bond are significant. Primarily, there appears to be a correlation between how a physician views a rep and how many minutes that rep can spend talking about his or her lead brand (see Figure 1).

Figure 2

Reps who classify themselves as "trusted colleagues" (based on how they think they were perceived by the last physician they called upon) got more time with physicians than those who put themselves in the "sample supplier" category (see Figure 2).

As shown in the graph, more than half of the sample suppliers (52%) reported talking to the physician for less than one minute; only 14% of "trusted colleagues" reported so little time. This latter group most often (36%) put themselves in the three-to-five minute category.

On what to do about this time crunch, reps agree that the most important factor for getting more time with physicians is using their time efficiently. But getting to the trusted advisor level during periodic five-minute meetings is difficult — that is, assuming that the physician will see the rep at all.