Drug and Differentiation

Within the colossal pharmaceutical industry that has overwhelmed the market with its drugs and products over the recent years, there are hundreds of companies that exhibit their presence in new and creative ways. The competition between these companies is fierce. They are thinking of new ways to promote their products every day. Because of this, the key to success in this highly competitive industry is one simply-said yet immensely complex principle; differentiation.

Differentiation is what separates the best from the rest. The runner-up leader in the industry with 5.9% of the market, Pfizer Inc., has several patents that expire this soon. Lipitor, its big blockbuster product that treats cardiovascular disease, has its patent set to expire this month. Because of this, it is forecasted for many generic drugs and the competitor drug, AstraZeneca’s Crestor, to flood the market. Experts say that consumers will switch to cheaper alternatives from Lipitor once they are introduced. To remedy this loss, Pfizer plans to switch up the promotion for Lipitor. The big move is to slowly draw back from the US market and instead introduce the drug to new foreign markets including a stronger emphasis on India. This is an example of Pfizer’s differentiation strategy.

One important difference in the pharmaceutical industry with regular retail industries is that pharmaceutical companies rely on only consumers who actually need (or may need) their product. Because of this, pharma companies have different consumers and different groups of people to sell their products to. For example, Pfizer’s Toviaz is a bladder control medication. Toviaz is only going to be advertised to people who have or may have bladder issues. Therefore, TV and other advertisements will only be directed toward people with those bladder issues.

The final factor with competition between pharma companies is product differentiation. Company strategists must ask; why should a consumer buy our product? What makes our product different? There are two options that drug makers have. The first is to simply make a better product. It must be safe and show clinical proof that it works better than the competitor or the generic. Often, however, that option is very difficult, so pharma companies have been recently flocking to customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. Companies want to make it seem as if they actually care about the customer’s health and want the customer to purchase the drug in the future.

-Djeki Bidjerano

Sources used:

http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2011/09/30/all-drug-marketing-is-local/

http://blogs.wsj.com/source/2011/09/02/astrazeneca-a-lesson-in-how-to-shoot-yourself-in-the-foot/

http://www.toviaz.com/about-toviaz.aspx?cmp=TVBRWB6&tovsrc=TOVW10024936