Novartis Pharmaceuticals: Foradil

Challenge:
Novartis was preparing to launch one of their new products, Foradil, into the marketplace. Foradil is prescribed for the treatment of COPD yet Novartis is also developing several drugs designed for treatment asthma. Novartis needed a strong company who is experienced in identifying leaders within this part of the pulmonologist universe and who can play a role in the adoption of a product. Novartis wanted to understand the landscape of national key opinion leaders, the relationships of those pulmonologists who influence the top prescribers through personal interaction and the relative importance of hospitals, clinics and group practices within this area.

Solution:
The professional networks of physicians play an important role in product adoption. A decision to adopt a product can be profoundly influenced by Key Opinion Leader (KOL) peers who have already formed a positive opinion about a product.

Through our uniquely created patent pending process we target those KOL’s focused on top prescribers of treatments for a given specialty. These leaders significantly influence the opinions, and behaviors of others through their knowledge, advice and enhanced perspective, creating advocates which, then help gain the adoption of the product.

In this case our highly trained engineers delivered a solution using the latest technology and our proven process in a matter of weeks. Our Successful KOL program strategies are based on systematic and rigorous methods for identification, new research techniques, and the use of the latest technologies. We leveraged these strategies so that Novartis could establish long-term relationships of mutual trust with these leaders built on integrity and continuity.

Through our user-friendly methodology we have proven that successful marketing and adoption of a product requires a minimum of four steps. We incorporate these four steps as the basis for this successful solution:

1. Awareness: The physician recognizes the product by name.
2. Agreement: The physician evaluates and agrees to the theoretical premise of the product.
3. Adoption: The physician decides to use the product on a trial basis.
4. Integration: The physician incorporates the product into his daily practice of medicine.

Result:
Our unique patent pending process integrated with our online web portal interface streamlined the information necessary to accelerate the adoption of Foradil. The information presented to Novartis allowed them to analyze and gain an in-depth understanding of the landscape they were seeking. This new innovative technological break-through created a tremendous cost savings solution for Novartis as they focused target sales and marketing programs towards the influential pulmonologist leaders, saving them significant marketing time over the industries legacy methods.

Novartis has leveraged the information provided to them by ROI Squared to recruit speakers, advisors and consultants because of the quality of the leaders who were identified. Hospitals, clinics and practices identified as part of the leader information were also the target of educational and promotional programs. The technology used within our web portal allowed the information to be available to the sales and marketing organization so that managers at regional and district levels could effectively identify those highly valued physicians for their sales force to contact and influence through various programs.

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