One in Eight Pharmaceutical Sales Visits Fail; Academic Detailing Faces Similar Challenges

Face-to-face academic detailing also suffers from high costs and difficulties in reaching physicians for a meaningful discussion. The easiest to reach physicians also might be the least likely to need the outreach. Some plans might be able to offer financial incentives, some physicians might prefer mailed information; it seems the key is to start with the lowest cost per successful intervention possible and save the face-to-face meetings for those that do not respond to other methods.

from PharmaLive (4/17/09)

"One in Eight Pharmaceutical Sales Visits Are Impossible to Achieve, Says New Report from ZS

? Waste in Sales Resources Costs Industry $2 billion ?

EVANSTON, IL ? April 16, 2009 ? Thirteen percent of all pharmaceutical sales calls in the United States cannot be completed because physicians limit the number of times they see even the best pharmaceutical representatives. According to the Spring 2009 edition of the AccessMonitor? report from global consulting firm ZS Associates, sales activity plans at many companies, however, continue to call for visits to doctors who either rarely or never see sales representatives.

?Most pharmaceutical executives know there is a certain level of waste in physician call plans, and AccessMonitor? provides them with a systematic process to zero in on it,? says Chris Wright, principal and leader of the pharmaceutical practice at ZS Associates. ?Eliminating this excess could save the pharmaceutical industry more than $2 billion a year.?

AccessMonitor? is a proprietary tool that incorporates the call reports of more than 35,000 sales representatives from more than 125 different U.S. pharmaceutical sales teams. It includes representative call activity with more than 325,000 primary care physicians and specialists across the United States, making it the most comprehensive view of physician access available on the market today.

Mapping the Dynamics of Physician Access

The Spring 2009 AccessMonitor? report classified 23 percent of doctors as ?medium access.? This group of physicians will see representatives, but are still difficult to reach: approximately 50 percent of the sales representatives that visit these doctors fail to get in the door. About six percent of physicians in the country fell into the ?low access? category, which means they will not see representatives from any company.

Further, though challenges to physician access exist nationally, the report shows particularly high restrictions in Boston, Minneapolis and parts of Wisconsin and the Northwest (including Seattle and Portland). In these areas, more than 20 percent of doctors are difficult to see.

?AccessMonitor? details the true state of physician access in the U.S. pharmaceutical industry today,? said Wright. ?We anticipate that our findings will drive companies to make meaningful changes to their sales force structure and deployment, improve territory and compensation plan design and, in turn, make the best use of all available resources.?

In addition to the bi-annual national industry reports, participating companies also receive a company-specific AccessMonitor? report. To learn more or to participate in the next round of reporting, contact ZS Associates at +1 (847) 492-3602 or visit www.zsassociates.com."