HS&M - July/August 2016

and coordinate their outreach. And, thanks to the cloud, the data stays up to date with continuous field feedback loops that are checked and verified.

Despite the added complexity today, there is good news. It seems that physicians may finally be opening their doors wider and more often to commercial teams—according to new research from CMS/Compas, 39% of physicians are willing to see life sciences reps without restrictions, up from 36% last year and in striking contrast to the trend towards restricting reps from physicians’ offices. The reversal reflects a growing interest in new types of complex products that have the potential to change patient care, according to the research firm.

Personalized medicines, for example, are on the rise but require a great deal of collaboration and knowledge. Personalized medicines represent nearly half (42%) of drugs in the pipeline today, according to a survey by the Tufts Center for the Study for Drug Development, making well-prepared key account managers, specialty sales reps, and medical teams an even more vital part of therapy decision making.

For this reason, only 13% of physicians plan to decrease their interactions with the industry compared with 27% in

2014 and 24% of oncologists report plans to increase their interactions with industry, up from 11% last year.

Combined, certainly these indicators paint a brighter picture ahead for key account managers—but only if they are armed with proper training and the right technologies that will allow them to take full advantage of the abundance of data available today. Many existing data models remain flawed—powered by vast swaths of data but without the analytic capabilities to accurately characterize each stakeholder based on their hierarchy in the overall healthcare organization and in relationship to other influencers.

These data products, too, are still modeled as a “service,” which means that data is sent to life sciences companies by the batch twice a year, or at best monthly, despite the fact that the market is changing constantly.

To fully leverage the tremendous treasure-trove of data, the life sciences industry needs a new model where data across all key stakeholders is consolidated into one system and updated in real time. The next step is placing data-driven insights about customers—whether defined as an individual physician, healthcare system, payer, or any other influencer—directly into the hands of those who use it most. •

CoMMENT

Sean McCarthy

Director of
Commercial Strategy
Veeva Systems
Sean brings more
than 20 years of
business process and IT product
development experience to Veeva
customers. Sean began his career in
product engineering and consulting
before landing at Boehringer-
Ingelheim as a sales operations
manager in 2004. During his tenure at
BI, McCarthy rose through the ranks
in various roles including commercial
operations, business analytics, and
enterprise IT strategy. Today, he is
leading Veeva’s commercial strategy
team to help life sciences customers
establish new, modern account
management strategies and cloud-
based solutions into their global
commercial operations.

sean.mccarthy@veeva.com

Veeva Systems Inc. is a leader in cloud-based software for the global life sciences industry. Committed to innovation, product excellence, and customer success, Veeva has more than 375 customers, ranging from the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies to emerging biotechs.