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This is How to Revive Mature Pharma Brands

As the costs of research and development for pharma increase every year, interest in mature pharma brands is decreasing. As pharma brands get past the 5-year mark, brand marketers see very little value in them. However, there is a lot of potential to be harnessed from these brands, and we’ll show you some of the ways you can do it today.

What are the choices with mature pharma brands?

The first thing brand managers can do is to continue promoting and licensing the brand. This is one of the less popular choices, but it is by far the best one if the right tactics are used.

Second, the mature brand can stay in the company portfolio without any investment in promotion. Nothing ventured nothing gained – obviously not the ideal choice.

Finally, the company can sell the brand. This is a low-risk tactic, but it requires careful thinking. Before selling off a mature brand, you need to ensure that the ROI in further investments is not favorable.

Based on our experience with pharma companies in the past, our choice is number one – promotion. Here are some of the ways to do it.

How to revive mature pharma brands

Plan ahead of time

The best way to stop a mature brand from giving you headaches in the future is very simple. Start thinking about it before it comes mature. Most pharma companies jump into action 1-2 years before the brand patent expires. At this point, it’s too late for any viable strategies. For the best results, companies should think well ahead of time – at least 5 years before the patent expires. By actively promoting the brand in the last two years before patent expiry, pharma companies can ensure increased profit in the post-patent period.

Low-cost, high efficiency

Provided there is demand, the problem with mature brands isn’t the fact that they have been on the market for a while. The real problem is that the competition hasn’t been sleeping ever since your brand was launched. To catch up with the latest in drug research, you would need to spend exorbitant amounts of money on promotion.

Instead, you should focus on low-cost channels that maximize your pharma company’s reach. Primarily, this means going digital. By sending out targeted emails, you can focus your mature pharma brand on exactly those audiences that would be interested in trying out an established product on the market. In a recent study, one pharma brand used email to market their Alzheimer’s disease drug. In the period of 12 months, 25,000 physicians were targeted, with 5,000 e-details. The results were nothing short of amazing. The ROI was 760% with a 68.9% increase in new prescriptions. In our own research, we have found that email marketing works best when coupled with medical explainer videos.

Increase demand

Easier said than done, right? In the chase to get more prescriptions, patients’ opinions have a profound effect. As studies have shown, physicians are much more likely to prescribe drugs requested by patients. If physicians are increasingly prescribing your competitors’ products, perhaps it’s time to attack the issue from another source. By directly influencing patients, you will be able to indirectly reach physicians as well. The easiest way to leverage this is by investing in DTC advertising. Considering that you need to invest in mature brands, be mindful of the ROI before allocating any funds for advertising.

Outsource your commercialization

This is arguably the most convenient choice for most pharma brands. Instead of devoting your own time to marketing, you can simply have someone else tackle this job. Given a large number of mature brands out there, a new type of service has emerged. An outsourced partner can take full control over a mature pharma brand and launch it back into profitability. An experienced commercialization partner can handle all aspects of the project, from strategy to marketing and all the way to sales.

Take the next step

If you’re looking for a reliable digital pharma marketing partner to help revamp mature pharma brands, BlueNovius can help. Spearheaded by PubExplainer, our range of digital marketing solutions will help your pharma brand stand out as the leader of the pack.

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