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Digital KOLs prove effective in boosting pharma marketing: Docplexus CEO
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Laxmi Yadav, Mumbai
November 18 , 2016
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With the rise in number of medical professionals using professional
social media platform, digital key opinion leaders (KOLs) are proving to
be the most efficient mode to communicate new treatments and
information about the drugs, said Phanish Chandra, CEO, Docplexus, a
doctor networking platform.
KOLs are the expert doctors who are
regularly sought out by their colleagues for opinions or advice. They
often speak at regional, national or international conferences and
publish articles in major journals on regular basis.
Considering
their importance in shaping healthcare delivery and driving clinical
and policy decisions, the digital KOLs’ interactions have been highly
sought after for marketing opportunities by the pharma companies. This
provides them real-time trend analysis and that is how they are able to
create a better marketing campaigns, said Chandra.
A majority of
Indian doctors are now on professional social media platforms like
Docplexus where they are interacting with each other regarding the wide
range of topics. In this short time, many KOLs have emerged as digital
KOLs. Digital KOLs presence on online professional networks is the most
important touch-point for pharma companies. In their interactions with
other doctors regarding the patient cases, real-life scenarios, during
interactive webinars, and questions asked during online CMEs, the KOLs
can identify the clinical challenges that other doctors face.
If
pharma companies collaborate with these digital KOLs with their
proprietary insights to discuss their products they could benefit a lot
and at much faster unprecedented rates, said Chandra.
Digital
KOLs can share these insights with doctors and educate their peers for
better communicating strategy with patients. Through the open channels
KOLs can reach to the masses and give simple insights that can be
effectively implemented.
For any drug to achieve its adoption
benchmark and other success benchmarks, it is critically important that
the doctors feel confident with the efficacy and are satisfied with the
side-effects of the drugs being commercialized. In addition, the doctors
also need to feel comfortable about the price-point.
What
digital KOLs can achieve is that they can reduce the grey areas of
information, give a first-hand information of use and experiencing in
adoption of the drug. In this era of consumer awareness, they can also
illustrate how the patients are reacting to the drug. All these points
are critical to achieve success.
In other words, the KOLs can
identify existing and potential adverse effects that arise/can arise and
communicate them with the pharma companies. Pharma companies cannot
consistently get in touch with doctors even if it is mandatory for them
to do so. Digital KOLs effectively anticipate the risk of adverse drug
reactions. They also clarify the confusion about the adverse drug
reactions and clinical criteria in the doctors’ community at large, said
Docplexus CEO.
Pharma companies in India have just begun their
journey in the content based digital marketing. At this phase, they are
focused on identifying and strengthening relationship with existing
digital KOLs. At later stages we may expect to see that many other
digital KOLs and influencers shaping healthcare delivery and eventually
be collaborating with pharma companies to make sure their peers get the
best possible information that can help improving patient outcomes, he
concluded.
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