Optimizing Product Commercialization in Today’s IDN Environment

Today’s guest post comes from Greg Skalicky, President, EVERSANA; Krista Pinto, President, Deployment Solutions, EVERSANA; and Faruk Abdullah, President, Professional Services & Chief Business Officer, EVERSANA

Greg, Krista, and Faruk explain how and why integrated delivery networks (IDNs) have become crucial stakeholders for drug commercialization. They outline a two-pronged strategy to help brand teams thrive in today’s IDN landscape.

To learn more, read EVERSANA’s free report: IDN Trends and Engagement Strategies Every Drug Manufacturer Needs to Know.

Read on for Greg, Krista, and Faruk’s insights.

Optimizing Product Commercialization in Today’s IDN Environment
By Greg Skalicky, Krista Pinto, Faruk Abdullah, EVERSANA

Integrated Delivery Networks (IDNs) have drastically reshaped the healthcare landscape in recent years. Today’s commercialization strategies require a multifaceted approach that acknowledges the opportunities and challenges associated with the IDN model. Reliance on traditional field teams and television ads is no longer enough. Instead, brand teams must continue to evolve in terms of how they develop the best engagement strategy to ensure access to their lifesaving medications.

Understanding IDNs

In recent years, IDNs have risen in prominence across the healthcare landscape. Today, nearly 80% of all physicians in the U.S. are employed by a hospital, health system or other corporate entity—a significant increase from less than 50% a decade ago.

IDNs bring several inherent advantages to healthcare, including the opportunity for:

• Improved operational efficiencies
• Stronger purchasing power
• Improved patient care and clinical outcomes
• Streamlined data integration
• Reduced overall healthcare expenditures

IDNs often develop and control their own drug formularies, centralize their purchasing efforts, and implement standardized clinical pathways and treatment protocols.

Against the backdrop of today’s IDN framework, the decision-making process related to prescribing is more complex for healthcare providers (HCPs). Prescribers still need to be aware of the full safety and efficacy profile of the nearly 50 new medications introduced to the market every year, as well as understand how existing therapies compare to competitor therapies within the same therapeutic space.

Field deployment teams must engage with not only prescribers, but also a diverse range of stakeholders throughout the IDN system. Field teams can also help HCPs build confidence in their knowledge of the full range of therapy options so they can provide data-driven insights to advocate for therapies being considered by IDN formulary decision-makers.

Combine a top-down and bottom-up approach for an effective strategy

To thrive within today’s IDN landscape, brand teams must develop a synchronized two-pronged approach that delivers a strong, data-driven value proposition to all stakeholders.

Top-down outreach to IDN decision-makers.

Outreach aimed at clinical and administrative decision-makers within the IDN and key opinion leaders (KOLs) within various therapeutic areas must provide data-driven information that illustrates how access and adherence to the therapy can improve clinical outcomes and provide overall cost savings for the institution.

Wherever possible, the IDN engagement team should use real-world evidence (RWE) studies to demonstrate how the drug can:

• Optimize patient care and improves clinical outcomes
• Reduce healthcare expenditures
• Compare with other therapy options in the same therapeutic space (using comparative effectiveness studies, where available)

For instance, when RWE insights demonstrate how improved outcomes associated with a given therapy can reduce hospitalizations and medical interventions, the IDN will be more compelled to ensure access to that medication.

The effort to build trusted relationships within the IDN framework should begin at least one year prior to launch, with efforts to understand:

• The internal process for evaluating and approving drugs within the formulary system
• The specific strategic objectives designated for the health system
• The patient populations and specific diseases the IDN manages
• Desired patient outcomes that can lower costs

Bottom-up outreach to prescribers.

Physicians are busier than ever and have less bandwidth for meeting with pharma reps. Nonetheless, the underlying science associated with sophisticated and costly therapies–such as novel treatments for oncology, cell and gene therapies, and other complex biologic specialty therapies–continues to advance, so the role of field teams and related multichannel outreach from the brand is more important than ever: to educate physicians about therapies and help them understand which ones provide a comparative advantage (through data-driven RWE studies) over other options in the therapeutic space.

The ability for field reps to inform and educate individual physicians about the full clinical and economic value propositions of a drug puts physicians in a better position to help advocate for inclusion of the breakthrough or lifesaving medication on the IDN’s formulary so that patients are not denied access to it.

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Closing thoughts

Pursuing an impactful IDN engagement strategy that yields results requires a team of experts across the entire commercialization spectrum. Brand teams should engage with knowledgeable partners that have demonstrated experience, infrastructure and established relationships with IDNs. Consider selecting a partner that has launched complex pharma products and has a vested interest in maintaining those relationships. It will be costly and time-consuming to build your own team from scratch.

At EVERSANA, our end-to-end commercialization model seamlessly integrates Market Research and Insights, Field Deployment, HEOR, Value and Evidence, and Professional Services, creating a robust and comprehensive IDN engagement strategy. This unique and cohesive approach empowers manufacturers to navigate the complexities of the market, ensuring a successful product launch and sustained impact on the healthcare industry.

Are you ready to implement IDN engagement strategies to secure product access and utilization? Read our free report: IDN Trends and Engagement Strategies Every Drug Manufacturer Needs to Know or schedule a call with our team today.

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