Leveraging Data Analytics to Enhance Biopharma Sales

Daniel Levine (00:00.366)

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Daniel Levine (00:52.866)

You're tuned to Life Sciences DNA with Dr. Amar Drawid

Daniel Levine (01:22.93)

Good to see you. Good to see you, Danny. We've got Jonathan Blutfield on the show today. For people not familiar with Jonathan, who is he? So Jonathan is a seasoned biopharma professional with a career spanning over 40 years in the industry with leadership roles in marketing, sales, business operations. After retiring from a long career at Novartis, he set up a consultancy practice that's focused on driving competitive industries,

a competitive business, and impact through evolution of customer engagement models that integrate brand strategy tactics with traditional and digital field execution. And what are you hoping to discuss with Jonathan today? So we're going to focus on commercial organizations, how they can leverage data to ensure their greater success and how the data landscape is evolving. All right. Well, with that, let's welcome Jonathan to the show.

Daniel Levine (02:21.526)

Jonathan, thank you for joining us. You've been long involved in leadership roles in pharma companies. How has the use of data analytics changed over over your career over the last few years? So, it's a great question, Amrit. I started back in the early 80s as a sales representative. And when you look at the types of information sources we had commercially to support our promotional efforts,

I used to on a daily basis go into retail pharmacies and stand in the behind the counter and actually go through paper prescription records to get insight into what my customers were doing. And when you think about that being sort of the insight to drive my business decisions as a representative and where we are today, it's like Star Wars versus the Model T.

Since that time, we've sort of seen the evolution of, I would even say explosion of, information that enables us to make better decisions about how to support our customers and to support our brands and the promotional efforts. I remember from looking at prescriptions to when we were getting zip to territory information where we would know where pharmaceutical products were shipped from.

factory to retail pharmacy, right? That doesn't necessarily tell you who's prescribing the drug, but you had an idea of where the drugs were being purchased at the retail level. And from there- Sorry, when you said zip to territory, can you just explain that for the audience? Sure. So essentially what would happen was our company would purchase data through IMS in the day. It was called DDD data. And DDD basically tracked

pharmaceuticals from factory to wholesaler to retail outlet. And that would essentially organize that information from a zip code level and companies then arrange territories based on zip code, equating the zip code to a territory. So what we would be provided with would be an estimate of what business was being generated by retail pharmacies within a territory, i.e., within the zip code.

Daniel Levine (04:48.526)

However, the challenge there is what happens when a patient goes to a doctor who's in one zip code, or even worse, one territory, and gets their medicine dispensed at a pharmacy in another zip code, worst case, another territory. So it was a far from perfect situation. And we had no idea if ultimately it was the physician driving the prescription, the business decision maker, yet we were being given information about ultimately

where the drug was being dispensed, which was a step better than just looking at prescriptions. But again, putting it together with prescriptions created a more full circle of the information. But I think the next really big innovation became when you were able to purchase data that actually linked the prescriber of the product and physician level information.

That was a sea change and provided a whole slew of activities that supported all sorts of commercial activities such as targeting, such as field force compensation, field force incentives. We then figured out who was actually writing our medicines. That was a big deal. And then from there, we got into Star Wars when we started developing some anonymized patient level data,

and being able to get information that only brought us to almost real-time insight into when patients with a diagnosis were being seen, when patients with a procedure code were being seen. So you could get a look at when a lab test is ordered now, or when, and being able to, in the next era, mixing that data with advanced analytics to

sort of predict what kinds of inputs would yield what kind of outputs, where we are right now. So, you know, it's gotten, we've gone a long way from me being behind the pharmacy counter looking at prescriptions. That's fantastic. So tell us about like these days, how data is being used to generate the analytics, generate the insights for sales and marketing. Can you do us a deep dive from that?

Daniel Levine (07:09.922)

So, you know, I see a couple of applications here. To me, one of the most important was trying to figure out targeting first. Who should we be interacting with to drive our business? And- So the HCPs, right? The healthcare professionals that we want to target. Absolutely, the HCPs. And I can tell you, I can remember my days in the marketing organizations where we would develop target lists on some very antiquated data sources. I mean, think about when we didn't really have

that physician level information, how do you develop a target list? So how do you value each potential target and to figure out who you're gonna call on, who you're going provide other resources to from a promotional effort, who you're not, right? Yeah, and that's because when we're targeting, let's say that we have an oncology drug, you cannot target every oncologist in the world or in the US, you have to have a list of HCPs or healthcare providers that

that you target, right? So that's why we need a specialist for targeting, correct? Absolutely, and the key to that would be the valuation of each potential HCP to sort of figure out what would be their potential, and therefore based on that, you can figure out how you want to efficiently, from a cost efficiency perspective, convince them to go from what they're doing now to changing behavior to prescribe your product. So identifying who is probably one of the most important

pieces of insights that we're getting now where we have some really incredible data that we didn't have back in the day when I started even in the marketing organizations and developing target lists. Back in those days, for example, we would simply send surveys out to our sales force, right, and have them fill out the surveys which we would then bring in-house, analyze, and create target lists. Now you can actually use artificial intelligence to, you know, kind of look at all the various data sources

and come back to us with some pretty sophisticated analytics to figure out who should we be targeting. That's it. Yeah, and just when we say healthcare professionals, so these are mainly physicians and nurses, and so can you explain that a little bit? Sure, so, you know, in my day as a rep, this is back in the 80s, it was the physician, full stop, right? But now you have all sorts of other people that are involved in the decision-making process.

Daniel Levine (09:37.798)

Now, mid-levels, which are often nurse practitioners or physicians assistants have the ability to prescribe. So it's not just physicians, right? In addition, there are other decision makers also that we need to get to as well who can potentially influence the decision. In my day, it was the HCP who was the judge, jury and executioner to decide who got what. Now there's several different

layers of stakeholders that we need to get to. And there's the data sources we need to look at to sort of inform who we get to. So that today to me is so critical and almost automating at least the first pass of who we think we should be targeting. At the end of the day, though, as the data has become more and more sophisticated, we still really require the input of the local representative

or the local MSL, in the case of medical targeting, for example, to figure out, look at the suggestions that come out of the advanced analytics, but ultimately apply local market knowledge to sort of put the final touch on a target list. Now, you talked about the target list-of targeting with data analytics. What are some of the other areas in which data analytics is used these days?

Essentially what we're talking about is "who." To me, the next output of advanced analytics and data analysis is "what," right? What is it that you're going to offer to sort of help move the healthcare professional from A to B from prescribing competition agents to prescribing our agents, right? So advanced analytics-

tapping into all these different data sources. And now it gets interesting. It's mixing the externally available data on whether it's diagnosis, whether it's prescription, what have you, with the internal promotional data now. And this requires a blending of those data sources from externally purchased data to internal promotional data to really get a feeling for promotional response. And the more,

Daniel Levine (12:01.622)

the richer we make that input data, what the company is actually doing, can better within our advanced analytics models help inform suggestions as far as what we should be doing. So there was the who, as far as targeting goes, and then there's the what, and that's new. In my days, it was left to judgment. Now the analytics can inform what next best

action might be. So when you talk about next best action, can you explain what that means and can you talk a bit about the new channels that are available now which weren't available before and how next best action is done these days? And there's so many layers to that onion, right? And it's fascinating, right? I've always been biased being somewhat old school,

on the value of the face-to-face promotion. However, that face-to-face promotion can be supplemented and reinforced by multiple other channels. Think of email, and that's an incredibly popular channel. The advanced analytics can calculate and figure out what might be the right time to send an email, but it's more than just email, right? There's all sorts of other...

banner ads. And there's just layers and layers of non-personal channels that can be figured out and the artificial intelligence can actually predict what might be the best order of and best channel to engage with a healthcare professional. So on the channels on the personal side, there could be videos, there could be calls, emails, texts, etc. On the

non-personal as you're talking about, like banner ads or like you know web searches or so. There's a lot of those like personal and non-personal channels that people now have to work with right yeah, and the analytics can actually provide a suggestion as far as the next best action which would be What message do you deliver in which channel at which time? And that incorporates the aggregation of data

Daniel Levine (14:23.726)

from third party sources such as patient level data, such as physician level prescribing data to promotional data that's coming from the company as to what sort of actions have been done in the past. All that can be figured out and derive a suggestion of what could happen next. The special sauce in all this, though, has to be not just follow the suggestion, the next best action suggestion to the key, to the T,

because there needs to be a human element of all this. And that to me is the difference between sort of just following blindly whatever the machine says, whatever the computer says, but to actually provide a human element and a certain layer of common sense to how to engage. And that gets into the quality issue that we need to sort of address. So right now,

in these next best actions recommendations that we get from analytics and AI. What do you say in terms of the quality? How good are they? Are they getting to the right points or there's a lot to be done in that area? I think they're a very important tool and I can recall multiple pieces of data

that I've seen that indicate that despite all these incredible advances since the days of me being behind the pharmacy counter counting prescriptions to where we are today, there's still the importance of what you actually say to the physician matters. And there's data that shows that despite all these advances in channels and in analytics, it's still the sales rep getting in front of that

HCP that has the largest impact on prescription. And we've seen this over and over again. Here's one piece of data that I saw, which is fascinating. When you look at email open rates as a surrogate for the success of the value perceived in the interaction. When a sales rep sends the email versus when it's a sort of a blank mailbox of headquarters that sends the email, the open rate of the HCP goes up by nearly a factor

Daniel Levine (16:48.15)

ten. That shows you the impact that that sales rep has. Similarly, what we've also seen is in-I've seen so many promotional response models, which are used to sort of predict if I do X, what will be Y and which is the most important channels. Over and over and over again, despite all this propagation of new channels, it's still the traditional rep in the face

in a personal visit to the HCP that is the most important driver of prescription. So now the key with taking that very fundamental old school approach, the sales rep relationship with the HCP is still king, how do you integrate that operational sort of fundamentals with some output from advanced analytics that blend the two? Right? And that to me is a special sauce.

The companies that can do this well really can leverage the value of that data, but execute in a way that continues to bring value to the HCP. And what is your advice for companies to do that? How they should do it? So I've had these conversations so many times where it's- inject a layer of

common sense to the equation. The purchase and sale of a pharmaceutical product, the model is completely different than the purchase and sale of fast moving consumer goods. So let's not fall into the trap of treating HCPs like Amazon customers, right? Pharmaceuticals are still a largely rep-

driven event and the advice would be go in with that information and go in with that insight and really integrate into making sure our reps can still create a compelling rationale for using one's brand, right? That is not a simple thing to do well artificial intelligence advanced analytics can provide all sorts of great insights as far as

Daniel Levine (19:08.97)

you know, what's going on and what might be a next best action. If you don't do your fundamentals right, if you don't have an executional framework where people in marketing and sales and the digital teams are all working together as far as how the engagement with the HCP should be consistently, you're not gonna be successful. So, you know, the machine might tell you to do-

deliver this message fragment. At the end of the day, it's not a message fragment that's gonna convince the HCP to prescribe the product. It's an argument. It's a personal promotional story that needs to start with marketing strategy, needs to be then executed through marketing tactics that come from headquarters, whether it's traditional tactics or digital tactics, but then it needs to be executed by the sales rep. Similarly, I've said this many, many times,

HCPs are consumers just like you and I. They don't like getting their email inboxes spammed, just like you and I don't like getting our email inboxes spammed. And I've had conversations with dozens and dozens of sales reps who all too often, because of sort of the concept that is the risk with advanced analytics, more is better. If I just do more promotion, that's better. If I send one more email, it will be better, right? Versus coming.

moving forward with an operationally reasonable orchestration model that just doesn't provide spam to the inbox, but actually provides value to the HCP, which is orchestrated through the sales rep. And there's alignment between the sales representative and the HCP to align on what will.

what kind of value could I deliver after my face-to-face call through what additional channels can I deliver them that is going to be value to the HCP? That's a whole different equation than getting some advanced analytics that tells you this is an express action, just do it. And if you don't have the content that's actually going to be value creating as opposed to content that's just message fragments, which is what an advanced analytic exercise often tells you to do, you're not creating the value proposition that's going to bring value for the HCP.

Daniel Levine (21:26.658)

And when you said message fragment, this is the message about the efficacy or safety about of the truck, right? Right. So it's not just about the features and benefits of the brand, right? What we need to do and is actually create a story, a compelling story that starts with the strategy if marketing clearly defines-

What is the patient that you're gonna use the drug in? What is the problem that you're solving with the status quo therapy that your brand can then solve? And how then do I orchestrate a series of resources for the HCP after the call that's going to bring additional value to help inform the decision to move from A, status quo, to B, your new agent, right? That is the key. The advanced analytics can't do that for you, right? That has to be done with

nuts and bolts marketing strategy, marketing tactics, traditional and digital, and sales execution. The insights that can be gleaned from artificial intelligence can help inform next best action, but it must be in a broader context of traditional, fundamental marketing and sales competitive selling. That is so critical. And the firms that can mirror and marry

merge, if you will, I'm sorry, the advanced analytics and the artificial intelligence and the next best action suggestion with good, strong capabilities that are in marketing, digital and sales that really treat HCPs as partners in creating value for them as opposed to just content that is reach and frequency in your face.

More is not necessarily better. Quality of the interaction is key. That's great. So you see the role of the sales representative to be enhanced by the AI rather than reduced. Is that right? Absolutely. To me, the role of the sales rep in today's environment is one of an orchestrator. It's almost like the conductor of an orchestra.

Daniel Levine (23:47.038)

We know from the data that when the sales reps involved, the physician engagement level goes up. There's a relationship factor that cannot be replicated by a machine, right? The key is how can you arm the sales rep with the appropriate degree of insights that are going to help them orchestrate an experience that's going to bring value to the HCP and value to the company so that you can convince the HCP to stop doing A

and start prescribing your brand instead. So yes, this to me is supplemental to what the sales rep can do. The starting point is that putting that rep in front of that HCP and we do know that face-to-face engagement is still the most impactful way for rep to engage with the HCP. However, we also have a very big challenge now in today's world of biopharma and that is access to the HCPs is declining.

This is the real opportunity now for the multiple channels and the analytics that can support the use of those channels. But orchestration becomes key, right? This is getting the sales rep as sort of the hub of that wheel and that face-to-face interaction as key, leveraging that face-to-face action with follow-up actions through other channels.

can bring a lot more value. And in fact, I've seen a lot of pieces of data that show the value of engaging pre and post sales call. With additional channels interactions can dramatically change the impact of that call. So putting this all together, this really enhances the value that the rep can bring by these other channels. So although access is going down,

good representatives can use the time that otherwise would have been spent at high frequency interactions. Today, that's no longer as doable. But using that time to invest in how am I gonna use other channels to leverage my sales call and bring additional value through those channels to the HCP. That requires a close partnership between the representative and the HCP. The artificial intelligence can be used to support

Daniel Levine (26:06.946)

that and to help the rep make suggestions to the HCP of how I'm going to bring value. But it's the combination of the two, the additional channels, leveraging the face-to-face call to bring additional value. That's where the magic can happen. And I see it over and over again, the data suggests that this is a game changer if you can do this right. Now, how do you see the reps now getting up-skilled

to do that, right? Because traditionally using data insights from data analytics, AI, that was not part of a rep's roll. Do you see now a trend toward that? Because it looks, from what you're saying, for the rep of the future, for them to be successful, they need to now start using AI in a much better way. So how do you see the opportunity there? So that is key. In my experience,

The first step is to develop what we would call an orchestration model, right? So before you train and up-skill, there needs to be an organizational-wide investment in capability building. And capability building is different than training. To me, a capability must be established so that all hands on deck in digital, in headquarters, and in the field, have a common understanding of what orchestration means. Just like what I was saying earlier,

What is the conversation that you want the rep to have with an HCP? That is a capability that must be aligned and have a framework that everybody in headquarters and in the field works on the same page. The same must happen with the orchestration model. Getting that right is key. Once that is done, then you have training for all stakeholders to participate. It's not just the field that needs to be trained on that capability, but...

the content generators need to be trained on that capability. The biggest challenge I've seen in this space is after you've done all of that sort of pre-work, there's still a kind of a suspicion in the field that these machines are going to take over my job. I don't know what is the field is the sales reps, right? The sales reps have a field. Sure, and although my world was all commercial, I would imagine on the medical side with the MSL's similar concerns.

Daniel Levine (28:29.354)

And that is that the first key to this is to sell the what's in it for me to the sales rep, right? The, In my career, we spent a lot of energy on change management, right? So it's, you know, the first step in up-skilling, if you will, is to convince the representatives that this is indeed not a threat, that this is actually, that the rep role is still central to the operational framework. However,

now you have all these tools that supplement your value and create additional value that you can bring to your customers, right? So convincing them of the value proposition is critical and convincing them not, and actually another step here beyond up-skilling the rep is up-skilling management expectations. It's governing this. It's part of change management, but if you have an organizational framework on how

interactions should work? What kind of content is required? It's the headquarters people, the digital people, and the marketing people that are creating that content and the tactics must also be governed in that same respect. It's what expectations are we going to set for our sales force and what are we going to manage around those expectations? What key performance indicators of execution are we going to track? If you don't have those right,

getting the sales reps to execute against wrong KPIs will be a disaster. I've actually seen this happen where oftentimes the KPIs, whether it was in traditional sales calls, back when I was a rep, it's counting calls, or in today's world, counting channels and digital interactions, if it's all based on quantity versus adherence to a more sophisticated orchestration model,

that's a big difference. And everyone needs to be held to those KPIs. The marketing organization needs to be held. The digital organization needs to be held to building tools and content. And the sales representatives need to be held to then using those tools and content to bring additional value. And at the end of the day, that value of those activities can be measured in prescription output. And it's what business are we driving as a result of utilizing the frameworks and the tools that drive that execution.

Daniel Levine (30:54.786)

Great. John, thank you very much for these insights. This is really great. Jonathan, so Jonathan Blutfield, principal consultant with TriRadial Solutions. Jonathan, thank you very much for your time today. My pleasure. Thanks, Amar. Well, Amr, what did you think? So this was a very insightful conversation. John talked about how data analytics has evolved in pharma sales and marketing from

40 years ago to now. And also, how there are a lot of great insights now that are being driven by data analytics. But it was also interesting how he has provided caution about, let's not swing the pendulum too much. That, yeah, it's great that we have analytics and AI that is now providing a lot of new suggestions and so, but we need to have that marriage between that and...

the common sense and the relationships that the sales rep has. So it's a very interesting approach that we need to have that balance rather than going too much on the side of the AI. It's remarkable to think of him standing behind a pharmacist desk and kind of rifling through prescriptions. The volume of data today, I imagine, would have overwhelmed the sales rep in the 1980s. As you think about what Jonathan said, where do you see the biggest data challenges today for sales reps?

So I would still say that the data that we get in the pharma commercial world is not complete. So the sales rep does not know exactly what type of patients there could be or what kind of, how exactly what they are saying, how exactly that's being translated into what the HCP is prescribing. So there is a challenge in terms of they're having the right data, but also in terms of insights, right? So...

with the new AI technologies and with this omni-channel approach where there are multiple channels, the reps can get bombarded about, oh, send this message or email this message. And I've personally heard sales reps saying, well, this is a message I just gave to the physician and I can't email that right away to them. The sales rep needs to use their common sense because they have these...

Daniel Levine (33:15.25)

strong relationships with the HCPs and they need to manage those. So there is that challenge and they can sometimes have too much pressure to use some of that information which they may think has already been used. That was actually a real interesting point when he was talking about how decision making has changed and how there's not one decision maker anymore. The fact that there's no single target is creating challenges, but it's also with technology enabling a much more

personalized approach. How critical is taking a personalized approach to success for sales teams today? I believe it's critical because see what data analytics is offering is a comprehensive view of the 360 view of HCPs and where the HCPs HCP stand on the different, you know, the different brands, or so

what are they thinking about, so they can provide a lot of that information. But then also the AI offers a lot of ways in terms of what is the messaging that needs to be given to the HCP. So it is very critical to have that information handy for the reps. And so the reps themselves are doing a lot of their homework, but this is just giving them very accurate information in their hands right away when they need it. So it is critical that they need to use this information.

Right now, it is a rep who's not using the insights that are coming from this tremendous data analyst that we're having. That rep is not going to be reaching the potential that needs to be there. You made a point with him about the skill sets of a sales rep, but I think most reps not coming from a technology background. What is the...

changing skill set that's needed for a sales rep and is it incumbent on the technology developers just to make their products intuitive and user-friendly. I think there is that it is incumbent on the technology developers to make their products more intuitive, but it's also the for the sales reps to really understand that this is a different world

Daniel Levine (35:33.166)

from the world that they maybe got trained in 20 years ago. This is a world where a lot of data is available, a lot of the insights are available, and they need to move away from just, well, the AI is going to replace me kind of a mindset, which I see a lot with the reps, and then move to, okay, let's embrace this. So the AI is here, how can we use the AI for my own benefit, and how can I get the insights, and how can I be more productive

with this AI to get all the right information that I need to make the best pitch. So that's how they need to make that change. So I believe, so on the one side, yes, the technology people, tools need to be better. But on the other hand, I think the reps need to be more proactive in learning more about the technology and in learning more about how technology can be used the best for their business that they're running. Jonathan brought this 40 year perspective to us. It's

remarkable to think not only about the changes that took place, but really how they're accelerating. Given that, what does that say about the need for flexibility in the way a company builds its data analytics?

I think in general right now with the changes that are happening with data analytics, they're so huge that it is becoming very hard to predict even what's going to happen next year. We have seen this revolution coming with the generative AI where things are changing very much and things like having personal assistant for reps and stuff, which was three, four years ago

something that people are beginning at this point, this is, we want that to be commonplace. place. So things are changing rapidly. The technology leaders need to be very cognizant of that. But there's also, what we see is there's a lot of technology that's coming up, but the right business application, especially in the pharma world, is not very easy. You have multiple challenges there, right? So first of all,

Daniel Levine (37:42.206)

the pharma world is complicated. It needs a lot of domain knowledge of the different areas in pharma. So for something or technology to be applied there, you need to use that very smartly using the domain knowledge. But then that's one part. The other part is there is a lot of regulations, compliance, so all of that needs to be taken care of and everything needs to fit with the right regulations.

But then also in terms of the change management, which is huge, when people are seeing something that is very different, they always question about it. And so all of that needs to come together. And I would say in general, I think that right now all data analytics leaders, they're on their toes because they're looking at what is coming up. But I would say that don't just jump on the next new thing that's coming up, right?

What they need to think through is, okay, well, here's the new technology. How is that applicable to the business? How can we bring that in? How are we going to do the change management and then how it's going to bring the right business value? So all of that needs to be thought through. So there needs to be a strong strategy around this rather than jumping on the next shiny thing. Lots to think about. Amar, thanks so much for the time. Looking forward to next time. Same here. Thank you, Danny.

Thanks again to our sponsor, Agilisium. Life Sciences DNA is a bimonthly podcast produced by the Levine Media Group with production support from Fullview Media. Be sure to follow us on your preferred podcast platform. Music for this podcast is provided courtesy of the Jonah Levine Collective. I'd like to hear from you. Pop us a note at danny@levinemediagroup.com

For Life Sciences DNA and Dr. Amar Drawid, I'm Daniel Levine. Thanks for joining us.

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