Innovator and Specialty Generic Drugs
An innovator product comes from the company that first discovered and marketed a particular chemical compound, which usually comes with patent protection. EB Pharma acquires its marketing rights for innovator products through partnership, as an innovator drug typically takes more than US$ 1 billion and 14 years to develop and receive approval. On the other hand, specialty generics use existing chemical compound but are manufactured with a different dosage form or strength, to achieve better efficacy, better adherence, or less side effects. Through extensive study of pertinent academic publications, combined with feedbacks from active patients, EB pharma identifies unmet medical needs and either develops the desired specialty generic product by contract research or imports such product directly.
Since various departments in hospitals (administrators, prescribing doctors, pharmacists, and purchasers) may not be familiar with the prescription behaviors as well as comparisons with competing products, newly launched innovator or specialty generic products are marketed with strategies below:
Sales representatives detail products to doctors whether in the outpatient rooms, in offices, or in cafeteria of the hospitals
In addition to the hospital environment, sales representatives can also detail products to doctors during mealtimes in restaurants, where doctors can be more relaxed and spend more time to understand the products
During break time or lunch time, our marketing team can make a presentation to a larger group of doctors. Under certain circumstances, doctors can serve as speakers, which further improves the persuasiveness of the contents
EP Pharma aggressively attend annual congresses of pertinent therapeutic areas. Beside strengthening relationship with doctors in a relatively relaxing venue, our active presence also solidifies our share of voice in the market
After many years in the market, both innovator and specialty generic products are likely to be threatened by competition. In one aspect, usually generic players will appear after patent expiration. In order to share a piece of the market, generic players would have to compete on price, and unfortunately either lowering selling prices to save market share or simply giving up a portion of the market leads to decreased revenues. In addition, even in absence of generics, other emerging innovator products, potentially with better treatment outcomes, can also convert a portion of our current prescriptions. Marketing strategies have to cope with threats described above, when the life cycle of an innovator or specialty generic product moves from mature to decline. Beside foregoing some price sensitive customers, sales representative would still make frequent visits, as reminding calls instead of detailing calls. In addition, when EB pharma showcases our new products during annual congresses, the share of voice of declining products can be maintained as a spill-over effect.
