These days, Indian pharmaceutical industry is witnessing tough market competition which is further getting more intense day by day. And as physicians are the most important target audience, PCD pharmaceutical companies keep on trying new marketing strategies in order to reach more physicians. Government laws and regulations have also been evolved over last some years which make the companies come up with more convincing techniques.

However there are many tactics that PCD pharmaceutical companies use, they can be broadly classified into two categories. Read further to know more.

Traditional techniques

Free drug samples: You might be aware of this sort of marketing where pharmaceutical companies provide free drug samples to the physicians. Actually, physicians also love to have them unless their medical network bans free samples. Our pharmaceutical industry finds free samples as the most effective and strongest marketing tool and spends billions annually for the same. Well, it’s also witnessed that free drug samples often encourage doctors to prescribe new and expensive drugs even if they already have an inexpensive brand option on hands.

Complimentary benefits: Doctors often find it fascinating to receive complimentary benefits from pharmaceutical companies. Such benefits include gifts like meals, air tickets, books, speaking fees, etc. There are many state governments who have banned such practices which clearly state that marketing in pharmaceutical industry has become a tough game.

Help of influencers: Many Indian pharma companies consider this one of the best indirect strategies to target the physicians. They develop professional relationships with the key influencers (opinion leaders or thought leaders of the sector) who then, influence the physicians to prescribe their medicines.

Modern techniques

Mobile technology: Doctors are one of the earliest adopters of mobile technology. With almost all the healthcare professionals already married to their favorite electronic gadgets (or smartphones), a smartphone or a tablet app has become the latest marketing technique for many pharmaceutical companies.

Social media: You might think how but yes, it’s true! Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are hottest among PCD pharmaceutical companies to reach more and more number of healthcare professionals. They consider this an opportunity to make the largest network to connect to the physician community.

Today, the scenario is that traditional techniques are fading and have not remained much effective. On other hand, both- patients and doctors are getting more inclined towards technology, making modern techniques more effective.

To stay abreast with pharmaceutical industry, keep watching this space.

Source:

• Pharma.org
• TheBalance.com

GST (The Goods and Service Tax) is certainly the most significant indirect tax reform measure initiated by the Indian Government. It is going to be the game-changer for many industries including the pharmaceutical industry. One uniform tax (GST) is going to eliminate the troubles arising out of the complex structure of multiple taxes. Almost 17 federal and state taxes are going to be eliminated and replaced by the GST.

Indian pharmaceutical industry is complex with and fragmented with over 20,000 registered units. This industry is facing some really crucial issues such as stopping degradation of medicines, managing of perishable items, managing temperature controlled storage facility and more. Following are three key points about how GST affects Indian pharma companies

1. Managing the supply chain

It has been analyzed that an efficient supply chain management (SCM) can result in an overall drop of 25% to 50% in total supply chain costs together with another drop of 25% to 60% in inventory holding which will further result in improved order-fulfillment cycle time and almost 20% increase in after-tax free cash flow. The cost for inventory maintenance is estimated to be around 10% to 18% of net revenue.

2. Making supply chain more efficient

Implementation of GST is also going to benefit supply chain, making it more efficient. Replacing the traditional C&F distribution model, inter-state transactions between two dealers will become tax neutral. Most of the Indian pharma companies will have to reduce the dependency on multiple states and increase the focus on regional hubs in order to re-align their current distribution models. This will lessen the complexities and remarkably reduce the SCM cost.

3. Introducing credit mechanism

Most of the Indian pharma companies work on traders-of-goods model in which a few services become a cost for them that also involves the service tax implications. But GST is to introduce a seamless credit mechanism according to which the paid service tax will be refunded to the companies.

Apart from this, cascading taxes like Octroi prevailing in different states will no longer exist now. Smoother operation and curbed corruption are other positive points to be considered. In a nutshell, GST is undoubtedly a reform which the nation had been wanting for decades and now that it has been introduced, we are soon to witness a stable growth in all the industries including the pharmaceutical industry.