Pharmaceuticals Newsletter

Map Out the Path to Excellence For most pharmaceutical salespeople, the typical customer image tends to fit a common profile: white coat, clipboard, stethoscope around the neck, and harried look in the eyes – you know the type. But that image may need some updating, says Dirk Ziegler, the director of global key account management for IMS Health. In today's health care world, Ziegler says, the pharmaceutical company's customer base has expanded dramatically to include not just physicians and other health care professionals,...read more.

Ever since the FDA eased restrictions on pharmaceutical companies' direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising in the 1990s, commercials for prescription medications have become frequent comedic targets, what with their stilted dialogue, lengthy lists of side effects, and less than subtle references to the drugs' benefits (such as the onetime ED sufferer who now hurls footballs through hanging tires with ease). Of greater interest to those in the pharmaceutical industry, however, is whether the ads actually work....read more.

Good pharmaceutical salespeople, much like fine wine and cheese, can get better with age. Then again, like fine wine and cheese, they can also go bad if they're neglected or improperly cared for. As Rayna Herman of HealthStrategies Group points out, there are certain tenured sales representatives who, after a period of growth and steady improvement, become complacent and unconsciously allow their skill levels to drop. Herman says that these reps, who she refers to as "fallen heroes,
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For an audience of young salespeople used to the full-on sensory assault of video games like Grand Theft Auto, the standard multiple-choice test-based online training approach taken by many pharmaceutical training organizations might seem a little, well, static.

Recognizing that more graphically driven and fast paced media is rapidly becoming the norm, Bayer recently set out to develop a new, more innovative,
...read more.