Healthcare, Pharmaceutical, Medical Devices

While for practical reasons it’s common to combine pharma, healthcare and medical device marketing into a single industry sector, E3’s experienced marketers in all of these areas know that they are vastly different segments that requires completely different strategies for marketing.

Who’s the target audience?

One of the key differences between medical device, healthcare and pharma marketing is the target audience, eg:

• In healthcare marketing, you may be targeting end users (patients), physicians and medical staff or hospital and clinic administrators.
• In pharma marketing, the key target is usually physicians and prescribers, but in some markets (not all internationally) creating information campaigns directed at end users is common.
• In medical device marketing, the target audience may include a group of physicians, medical staff, laboratories or hospital administrators in joint purchasing decision, especially for the most expensive devices.

Key market differences

Some other key differences between medical device and pharma marketing are the way sales must be approached. For example:

• Device training. With medical devices, training becomes an important selling tool, allowing the rep to build relationship with healthcare professionals.
• Multiple decision makers. In pharm the physician controls the buying decision by writing a prescription, but in medical device, multiple decision makes and influencers play a role.
• A competitive edge. Medical device purchases are often aligned with the idea of creating competitive edge in the market. Drug sales on the other hand, focus on patient outcomes.
• Less regulation and proof. A key issue with medical device vs. pharma marketing is the regulatory process that requires exact proof from clinical trials in pharma before marketing. Medical devices don’t have the same set of regulatory issues.

Industry topics

E3 agencies stay up-to-date on the most important topics the medical device, medical and healthcare industry, such as:

• Shifting disease profiles
• Aging populations and budget pressures
• Health access in emerging markets
• US healthcare reform
• Pharma pressure from generics and patent expirations
• Healthcare reimbursement (insurance, governments, providers)
• Pricing cuts for prescription medicines