Should Physicians Still See Pharma Reps?

A very good friend of mine is a physician and I can guarantee that were it not for the fact that our friendship began many years ago in university, he would not otherwise speak to me today because of my association with the pharma industry.

The pharma industry abused the privilege of it’s access to healthcare professionals (HCPs) when it entered what was effectively an arms race adding rep upon rep to their sales teams until the HCPs felt that they were being inundated by an army of overzealous salespeople trying to give them verbal commercials on the latest product.

The natural result was that many of those HCPs closed their doors to the industry and they have never re-opened them.

But should they?

Make no mistake, there is a price to pay for how the industry has behaved in the past. But despite all the bad press, I believe that it is even more important to remember the value that pharma reps bring.

When a company launches a new medication, there is no more effective way to educate HCPs on that product than through pharma reps. The reps are well trained to speak about the medication and provide the tools and resources needed to understand who the patients are that would benefit the most from it.

From the product monograph, to dosage cards to education events, no one is better resourced than a pharma sales rep to help HCPs get up to speed on new therapies quickly.

Pharma reps also provide an important impetus for better patient care. Look at hypertension, depression, erectile dysfunction, urinary incontinence, dyslipidemia. The list goes on.

Were it not for the efforts of pharma reps to educate physicians on the latest standards in medical care, many fewer patients would be getting the treatments that they need.

Even for well-established products, pharma reps provide an important service. Over time, more research is done and product monographs are updated with important new indications and information.

If a HCP wants an update or has a question on a given product, pharma reps are one of the most well informed sources on how to use that product, who can benefit from it and who it should not be used for. If the rep does not have the information, they have a wealth of other resources that they can call upon to help support the HCP.

The biggest criticism with regards to pharma reps is that the information that they present to HCPs is biased towards their own products. I recently went through the process of purchasing a new vehicle. Deciding between two different models, I spoke with sales people from the respective car dealerships. No one knew their cars better than those sales people and no one understood the strengths and weaknesses of the competition better either.

Even though I knew that each salesperson that I spoke with had a bias, I would have been foolish not to take advantage of their intimate knowledge of their own products and their perspective on the competitors. It made me markedly better informed for the ultimate choice that I made.

I believe strongly that it is the responsibility of the rep to ensure that the HCP understands which patients will benefit the most from their medications and even more importantly, which patients those medications should not be used for. In my experience, the overwhelming majority of pharma reps do that. But their passion for their products is by far more an asset than a liability in my mind.

The age of multiple reps going out and repeating the same canned message is over. The new generation is much more focused on understanding their customers and adapting to their individual needs.

As a pharma rep, if you do your job well, you make a very positive difference in the world. Through your work, you are helping to ensure that patients receive the treatments that they need and you help improve their quality of life. Sometimes, your work even saves lives.

So if you are a rep and are out there today, please don’t forget to remind your customers of the difference that you make.