Sales and Marketing-Backbone of Pharmaceutical Companies

Sales and marketing is supposed to be a life line for any pharmaceutical company . Discovery of Drug is a one part, but the most important part in the success of any drug molecule is how it is communicated and promoted among the health care professionals to generate huge revenues for the company.

If we see the traditional system, where drug concept was usually developed in R&D department which than moves to production department and at last to sales and marketing division for sales and promotion of product or drug molecule.

But current scenario is totally different, pharmaceutical process starts from marketing (market research) end up with sales. Pharmaceutical companies now days are more interested in customer oriented products. Companies initially conducts market survey to identify customers and market needs and than go for R&D to develop product according to that. The next step is launch and promotion of drug which also needs creative & hard efforts.

Success of any drug or product is mainly depends on how it is marketed. Lipitor is a number one brand containing Atorvastatin , while other statins are also available in the market with same features and attributes. The only reason of success of Lipitor is its well planned and aggressive marketing.

All pharmaceutical companies in India invest huge amount in Sales and Marketing of product, which some times goes up to 50-55% of companies total revenue compare to  R&D where companies invest only 9-10% of its total revenue.

Abhishek Gupta

abhi271183@gmail.com