Medical representatives are difficult

Pharmaceutical companies have reduced their investment in promotion expenses, which means they are beginning to face higher requirements for professional academic promotion.

1.

The above-mentioned person pointed out to Cyberland that there are now a large number of pseudo-CSO companies to solve the problem of the interest chain of the cost of pharmaceutical companies.

Previously, the statistics of the Pharmaceutical News Agency found that the top 10 A-share listed companies had a total of 49.

Regarding the decline in sales expenses of many domestic pharmaceutical companies, a pharmaceutical promoter who did not want to be named analyzed to Cyberlan that the impact of the epidemic last year has led to a sharp drop in the number of outpatient clinics in hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies are also experiencing a decline in benefits.

Indeed, according to Cyberlan’s observations, in addition to new products that have been launched in the past two years, the sales expenses of many traditional chemical companies have dropped in innovative pharmaceutical companies that have increased their market development efforts.

As for foreign companies, the current state-organized drug procurement in two batches a year is intended to promote generic drugs to replace original research drugs.

2.

Previously, an article published by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection on its official website pointed out the reasons for the continuous standardization of medical representatives in many ways-the profession of medical representatives originally had a strong academic promotion meaning.

According to the provisions of "The Occupational Classification Code of the People's Republic of China", medical representatives need to do four aspects of work: formulating plans and programs for the promotion of medical products; passing information about medical products to medical staff; assisting medical staff in rational use of medicines; collecting and giving feedback on medicines Clinical usage.

The medical representative registration management measures that have been officially implemented also stipulate that medical representatives must not perform the following behaviors: conduct academic promotion and other activities without registration; undertake drug sales tasks, implement sales activities such as collecting payments and processing purchase and sales receipts; participate in the personal issuance of statistics by doctors The number of prescriptions for medicines, etc.

Recently, the China Chemical and Pharmaceutical Industry Association issued the "Pharmaceutical Industry Compliance Management Regulations" to make it more clear that pharmaceutical representatives must not have promotion content that exceeds product indications, and must not directly or indirectly make, promise or authorize bribery payments.

Medical representatives are prohibited from providing any personal items that are not related to work in their interactions with medical and health professionals, and they are not allowed to pay medical and health professionals any facilitation fees.

In addition to the above-mentioned direct regulations, the hospital’s filing requirements for medical representatives entering the hospital, the medical price recruitment credit evaluation system links the terminal promotion behavior with the credit evaluation of the drug manufacturer’s bidding market and the supply qualifications, and the national and local health care The Commission’s phased rectification of unhealthy trends in the field of pharmaceutical purchases and sales, and the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection’s intensified anti-corruption efforts in the medical field are forcing pharmaceutical representatives to abandon promotional methods such as gold sales.

3.
Medical representatives start academic transformation

A few days ago, the relevant departments held a centralized procurement meeting to once again clarify that the provincial-level volume procurement in 2021 will continue to be promoted with a catalog of 500 varieties, combined with the national procurement and over-evaluation of specific varieties.

According to the news that has flowed out before, each locality can determine the number of centralized procurement based on specific conditions.
Specifically, it will cover 250 in 2021 and full coverage in 2022.
If the state does not carry out it, it will be organized by the provinces.

Regarding the range of varieties included in centralized procurement, industry authorities told Cybernet that the key varieties included in centralized procurement are mainly those with high clinical use, high prices, and unusual marketing costs.
The relevant departments hope to organize centralized drug procurement through the state.
To squeeze out the price of medicines, and discourage premium sales.

With the normalization of centralized procurement, the promotion costs of related products involving pharmaceutical companies are expected to be further reduced.
Many pharmaceutical companies that have been affected before have sent out signals to adjust and abolish sales teams.

Since medical representatives can no longer rely solely on expenses to carry out promotional activities, what key tasks should medical representatives do in the future? Zhao Jiazhen pointed out to Cyberlan that one level is the customer level.
No company can cancel the role of medical representative.
After all, from the perspective of sales or national conditions, medical representatives are still needed to maintain the hospitality of doctors.
ongoing.

Of course, the role of medical representatives also needs to be transformed accordingly-the former medical representatives were mainly based on customer conditions and expenses, and the future medical representatives will gradually turn to the direction of academic resource investment.
A senior executive of a domestic pharmaceutical company told Cyberlan that helping doctors at the academic level can ultimately translate into higher benefits.
Of course, this places higher requirements on the resources and capabilities of medical representatives.

In general, under the industry background of reducing the promotion costs of pharmaceutical companies, pharmaceutical representatives must gradually adjust their business development models and improve their professional capabilities.