Indegene maintains that innovative methods to track and collate patient data is gaining momentum. In this regard, the company sees that the concept of multi channel marketing is a critical success factor for patient adherence programme.

The MCM approaches to engage patients by voice, email, web, text messaging, eFax, direct mailing, scan and capture techniques. These methods can be applied, based on the patient’s convenience. In fact, with rising cost pressures and regulatory restrictions, a lot of the pharma companies are exploring the MCM route to support patients and engage doctors in innovative ways. Indegene works as a strategic and implementation partner for MCM programmes across markets in the pharmaceutical space. It offers research-based design formats plus execution, deployment of offline or online channels and creation of digital content.

“We have proprietary customer relation management (CRM) and customer logistic management (CLM) analytics platforms to manage programs using both offshore and onshore models,” Manish Gupta, CEO, Indegene Lifesystems told Pharmabiz.

Intelligent configuration allows companies to meet objectives, irrespective of whether a patient chooses to use one or more of these channels or not. “Now across markets, the response has been upbeat. Most pharma companies in the developed markets implement MCM in some form or the other. A lot of our clients are the top 20 pharma firms. The traction in the emerging markets has been favourable,” he added.

The five critical success factors in an MCM programme are patient recruitment, content strategy, key performance indicator (KPI) tracking and analytics, technology and program management.

The scope for MCM is quite wide. “There is a rising demand to design MCM programmes to engage doctors for consumer health and over-the-counter (OTC) drugs besides communicate with hard-to-reach medical specialists. Additionally, a lot of companies are using MCM to augment their current engagement, to create buzz around a new launch or to re-launch brands. Patient support is another important avenue where MCM seems to be gaining foothold,” he said.

The challenge in the emerging and developed markets is different. In  developed markets, prevalence and acceptance of MCM is relatively high and the key issue is to gain differentiation. In the emerging markets, key challenge is to get internal buy-in and manage change within the client organization. “The company invests significant effort in conducting workshops to increase awareness which includes appreciation of the benefits as well as challenges associated with MCM. In fact, a large proportion of its customers in the emerging markets are engaged MCM for the first time.”

There is considerable pressure to show quick proof-of-concept and business impact. “Our experience in MCM has enabled us to develop tools to optimize the channel mix, to benchmark response and project results. The in-house capability both organically developed and acquired has helped us stay at the fore-front of content and multi channel innovations that has made client programmes a success,” said the Indegene chief.