With Apple’s continuing advances into the health world, Samsung’s forays into disease management and the rise of biotechs and health startups, the industry feels a little more crowded than it used to.
Throw Google’s relentless desire for world domination into the mix plus other factors there’s not time to mention, and there is a growing recognition that we (Pharma) need to be ‘better at digital’.
So, after a client query about ‘digital adoption’ I ended up talking to John Rose at GlobalData (@GlobalDataHlth) and Dom Tyer from PMLive (@PMLiVEcom) around ‘who’s the best digital Pharma company?’.
As expected, it’s complicated and no one has really tried to do the analysis. Is that because the industry is too insular? Or companies don’t want to appear vulnerable? Or is there more going on?
There are multiple internal and external factors that would influence a company’s ability to adopt and execute digital excellence:
- Senior leadership buy-in and company organisation
- IT and internal management system infrastructures
- Sales force and ‘offline’ channel readiness
- Data harvesting, monitoring and insight generation
- Digital experience / capabilities / training
- …
… the list goes on.
However, it makes sense to read beyond the obvious to try and come to some conclusions. Although a little old, this report from Tim van Tongeren and Dennis van Rooij at DT Associates is an excellent starting point.
The top five were ranked thus: J&J > Merck > Sanofi > Bayer > Pfizer
Interestingly, Roche and AZ did not come out of this report that well but I think therein lays the intrigue. The report uses a great assessment framework but primarily deals with internal digital operational readiness.
Strong internal readiness is arguably the foundation for expressing digital excellence externally so why did Roche and AZ not do well, when their digital products (what we see) are usually pretty good? Where are Boehringer Ingelheim and Novartis (last year’s PM Award winner for Digital Pharma company of the year)? Why are ViiV or AbbVie not in the top five when patient groups value them so much?
Samsung’s ‘Look at Me’ Project
Individuals within the organistations carried out the survey and as much as DT Associates would have mitigated against personal opinion, the results may have been skewed. For example, the results would have been wildly different for a company’s performance if you had asked a digital lead with a traditional Pharma background versus someone employed into Pharma from a consumer market (happening more and more frequently).
Results could have varied even by what time and day you spoke to them, so were Roche and AZ just being hard on themselves? Were J&J and Merck being that realistic?
We’ll probably never know, so what else can be done? Cross reference with awards (for example the UK PM society programme), other reports from respected suppliers, external ‘non-social’ channels (e.g. websites, field force) and what other channels companies are using (the Digital Handbook can help), you start to get a flavour for the good, the bad and the ugly.
J&J (Janssen), Novartis, Sanofi, Bayer, AbbVie and Shire produce excellent stuff and BI are always considered leaders so they should be in the mix as ‘the best’. Another report – predicting 2014 big players in digital – listed these as the top five: J&J > BI > Pfizer > Novartis > Sanofi.
The Digital Insights Group (@diginsgroup) also carried out a recent survey of digital excellence with the field force across primary care, rheumatology, cardiology and oncology, where BMS, Genentech and Amgen feature, so in all honesty… who really knows who is best at Digital?
It’s up to you who you think is moving and shaking in the right ways but right now, if I had to hang my hat on a top five digital adopters it would look something like this:
- J&J
- BI
- Sanofi
- Shire
- AbbVie
AbbVie may come as a surprise, and are a bit of an outsider because they are ‘new’, but after partnering with Calico (Google’s Pharma company), and a huge acquisition recently, big things will be happening.
But digital is just one part of a complex equation. Pharma should be doing it, and being better at it but I’d argue there’s more at stake and more to consider here…
Everything.
So, enjoy, read on and let me know your thoughts below or on Twitter.