Pharmaceutical Sales: Communicating with Physicians

Course details

Why Attend

A thorough understanding of your pharmaceutical company's target audience is crucial when piecing together a marketable claim. The "one-size-fits-all" approach with physicians may have unfavorable effects on the pharma-physician relationship in an era where doctors are short on time, while being flooded with massive amounts of data. As many promotional activities and messaging by the pharmaceutical industry do not resonate with their potential customers, it is essential to plan effective methods for approaching physicians in a changing era of medical practice.

This course introduces participants to the basic communication skills required to efficiently and effectively address complex clinical or experimental data with physicians. The expectations of the target audience, good data understanding and analysis of the clinical trials, and factors influencing treatment choice by physicians will be thoroughly discussed.

Special emphasis will be placed on the most common physician profiles a pharmaceutical representative may interact with as well as potential challenges these profiles pose.

Course Methodology

This course uses a number of different training methods including presentations, group discussions, videos, question and answer sessions, case studies, and role plays.

Course Objectives

• Implement impactful communication skills while adapting to the projections of their target audience
• Acquire an understanding of physician profiles based on educational and cultural backgrounds, medical approaches, and thinking patterns
• Analyze the strengths and weaknesses of statistical data from a clinical trial
• Define factors influencing physician's treatment choices
• Create marketing material and promotional events for pharmaceutical products

Target Audience

Target Competencies

• Practical Statistical Reasoning
• Communication Skills
• Customer Psychology
• Creating Sales Strategies
• Creating Marketing Strategies

Course Outline

• Statistics for doctors - what they want to know
  • Overview of a scientific article
  • The question and the evidence based answer
  • Different study designs in practice:
    • Reviews and meta-analyses
    • Retrospective analyses
    • Sub-group analyses
    • Observational studies
    • Clinical trials
  • Dissecting a trial
  • Presenting the data
  • Statistics for the doctor
    • Research to practice applications
• Communicating with doctors
  • Basics of communication
  • Different communication styles
  • Discovering the doctor's communication style
  • Breaking the "one-size-fits-all" approach
  • Differentiating between the promotional message and the medical message
• Different physician profiles and challenges
  • The art of observation
  • Getting the message across
  • Making a big impact in little time
  • Building a foundation
  • Addressing concerns
  • Answering different questions and their purpose
  • What to say and when to say it
• Factors influencing the treatment choice
  • Different physician perspectives
  • Different physician profiles
  • Addressing the concerns
  • Presenting the data
  • Challenging questions and suggestions
  • Facilitating access
• Marketing and promotional events
  • Different types of events and their intended purposes
  • Choosing the target audience
  • Working with speakers and attendees
  • Assuring the scientific benefit
  • Relaying the message while preserving ethical and high educational standards