Postscripts Rx

Data is the New Currency: Why ROI Matters More Than Ever in Pharma

• Medisafe Team

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The pharmaceutical industry faces a transformative shift as drug pricing pressures intensify in the US market, with the September 29 deadline approaching for companies to implement Most Favored Nation pricing. Marketing strategies must evolve from traditional branding to outcomes-based approaches that demonstrate real value as margins tighten and price becomes a non-negotiable factor.

• Marketing budgets shifting toward outcome-based strategies that demonstrate improved adherence and access
• Real-world evidence emerging as critical currency to justify medication value beyond scientific efficacy
• Brand differentiation increasingly dependent on patient experience rather than price points
• Product lifecycle marketing accelerating to establish strong launch momentum before price erosion
• Growing investment in adherence programs to maximize value from each prescription
• Patient-centric pricing narratives focusing on equity, access and affordability becoming essential
• Multi-channel personalization delivering 54% higher engagement metrics through targeted communications

If you found this conversation valuable, follow or subscribe for more insights as we keep an eye on the intersection of pharma tech and patient impact. The real work begins after the script is written.


PostScripts Rx is not intended to constitute medical advice, nor is it intended to influence prescribing decisions or any other medical or clinical decision-making. All medical and clinical judgment and decision-making, prescribing decisions, and all related considerations remain exclusively the responsibility of providers and patients.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Postscripts, the podcast exploring what happens after that first prescription. We cover the latest innovations in patient access, support, digital tools, HCP engagement and pharma marketing that we hope drive better outcomes for patients. We typically do a daily podcast of 10 to 15 minutes every morning. Give you an idea of what's going on in the latest that we're hearing as we track a lot of the ever-shifting events that are happening in the pharma space and for patient access and support. Again, this podcast is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice or should it influence any clinical decision-making. Patients should always consult their healthcare professionals. Welcome to the podcast. My name is Brian Carr from the Medisafe team, although any opinions expressed here are my own and not necessarily those of Medisafe or its partners. So let's look at the pricing pivot. There's seven ways we're seeing right now, as of today, that pharma marketing and brand strategy is likely to shift as drug prices face pressure, given the September 29 deadline that the US administration has put into effect for major drug companies to give American consumers the MFN status of most favored nation status with price relativity to other countries. So let's see how those drug pricing pressures are really intensifying. You know for decades the US pharma market really operated under relatively few pricing constraints compared to global markets. But what's happening is we're seeing legislative momentum and judicial decisions really support cost containment and the era is shifting swiftly right. A pivotal ruling, you may recall, happened about two or three years ago with the US Supreme Court benchmark, because in the broader movement to make medications more affordable by patients by decreasing what both the government and individuals pay, the courts actually agreed to it and that means that it was out of the hands necessarily of PBMs, payers and hospitals and health systems as to what individuals would pay. So while patient advocacy groups really did share that move, it marked a pretty big inflection point for pharma marketers and commercialization teams Because what happens is, as margins tighten, brand strategies are evolving and it's happening pretty quickly. Right now that's calendar days it's more like about 31 or so for business days for the September 29 deadline that the Trump administration put into effect to get plans from pharma companies on how they're going to give American consumers MFN status, certainly within the next 18 months, if not sooner.

Speaker 1:

So what are the things we're likely to see? For agencies in particular, what we may see is some reallocation of marketing budgets toward more outcomes-based strategies. So as pricing pressure mounts, you can imagine pharma marketers could face some internal scrutiny over every marketing dollar spent. You see, traditional high-exposure branding activities may give way to programs that demonstrate improving outcomes, adherence or access right. So that's where digital platforms and I work at W MetaSafe, for example can really provide value and there's other vendors out there as well but by guiding patients with that personalized support and really capturing behavioral data which is what we do at MetaSafe, and we do it anonymously and data encrypted, with all the privacy rules as well to really capture trends in ways that we see trends coming in, that may help on a personal basis where we see other patients maybe say, for example, falling off on a particular treatment. After we see some of these data signs, we can actually get proactive with certain patients that we may be seeing this happening with and message them and do some what we call just-in-time interventions a little bit differently to make sure that they stay on brand and loyal and, you know, preserves their impacts, we hope, and good things with they stay on with their medications and also preserves the market share and other metrics for pharma brands right.

Speaker 1:

So you know what's happening here. You know you see US biopharma data on R&D and just you know it's typically more than $100 billion a year, right? So this is going to come under some increasing cost justification scrutiny. Sarah Deloitte's out with a survey a couple of years ago that 62% of pharma execs really did cite proving ROI of the brand support programs as a major challenge, right? So when we see a shift towards programs that really demonstrate value, it's not a trend, it's actually going to become a major KPI even more. As margins tighten. It's rapidly really becoming the norm.

Speaker 1:

So two, you may especially with agencies of concern, you may see expanded use of real-world evidence to justify the value, right? So brands now need not only to defend the scientific efficacy of medications but also real-world performance. When you see pricing negotiations, lean into value-based assessment is it effective? Are patients staying on treatment? That's going to be pivotal metrics because that actually, if they're staying on treatment, there's good indications that that's going to affect the overall value and efficacy of the medications, right?

Speaker 1:

So real-world evidence is really emerging as a critical currency, so you'll see agencies and innovation teams really adapting campaigns to fold in real-time feedback and loops using aggregated data sources such as those found with major digital platforms. Metasafe would be one of them. We've got billions of data points, for example, all anonymized, that can spot trends and do automated interventions to make impact real in the real world. So this level, this type of level of insight, really enables us real-time campaign calibration and can enhance payer and provider discussions about impact. And that real-world evidence really does help marketers because it can demonstrate adherence, impact long-term and highlight the behavior-driven personalization strategies that we know work right and tested and it builds stronger value-based messaging to stakeholders and brand loyalty as well. When you've got those support teams and real-world evidence talking to patients on a daily, weekly, monthly basis, even if it's in a digital way or using technology like, we're going to see more AI voice agents come to the fore, where it's human-gen-like conversations, but you're doing it with an AI bot with all approvals that are necessary and opt-in, similar to MetaSafe Via. We've already launched our platform that does that very effectively and it can be used for symptom tracking with patients, check-ins, things like that. So, and even, you know, encouraging them to download or join a program.

Speaker 1:

Three, you're going to see some challenges in differentiation and real competitive positioning right. So, as price becomes maybe a non-negotiable factor for payers and patients alike, you're going to see brands fighting harder to really differentiate purely on overall value, superior innovation and agencies are going to be leaning on brand experience, the totality of whether it's support services, hcp, comms and journeys and patient onboarding tools and digital engagement and real data. Coming back about campaigns and which campaigns are the most effective gnarly and driving medication, but persistence and adherence and compliant patients that are joining the program. So that's where you have digital companions can be key to shaping patient experience as a major value differentiator. And having integrated brand support into the daily lives of patients, especially those managing those chronic conditions, really can give market as an edge where drug pricing might not Might not give that edge. That has been in the past Four.

Speaker 1:

You're going to see acceleration of product lifestyle marketing and earlier adoption curves. You can understand there's revenue forecasts for new drugs really do rely on a strong launch momentum and peak year sales. So they're forecasting 10, 20 years in advance on a medication, depending on the patent. And then really those forecasts do take into account very strong launches. But if you're going to shorten those exclusivity windows and really have especially aggressive biosimilar entries and you really have to nail that early traction much more early on once a brand is launched. So and kind of lack of a better term lock in some of that brand loyalty from the beginning. Before the biosimilars come over and you know you have a price situation coming. So with the potential for, you know, cms negotiated prices coming, particularly under this information inflation reduction act, you may see some blockbuster medications see significant value erosion after only a few years if they don't have a strong launch. So to counter this, brands are going to have smarter omni-channel engagement immediately after launch. So that's where platforms and digital and real-world engagement tools like MetaSafe can really power that acceleration.

Speaker 1:

All right, and finally here look for growing investment in adherence and persistence programs, whether it's agency-wide promulgated or brand managers and procurement teams going directly. You know, in an environment of pricing scrutiny, it does become even more critical to maximize every prescription that's filled right. So non-adherence is going to lead to financial waste, lower health outcomes, which could then impact efficacy, conversations with payers and others in the pricing and overall missed impacts for wellness of patients and the impact it can have on patients and also revenue opportunities. So when you talk to, you know, non-adherents, we know what the challenges are. It's almost, you know, $300 billion. $100 billion to $300 billion in non-adherents is lost annually in the United States healthcare system. I'm sure if you're listening to this at this stage, you already know some of these numbers. When you have those smart adherence and loyalty platforms, they do allow pharma brands to close any leaky funnel post-initiation and post-titration for those launch brands especially so. It's going to maximize not just persistence but patient satisfaction. And this is where the full suite of a company like Medisave comes in, from voice-integrated agents to our digital companion solutions already integrated into their smartphones. We have HCP portals that help, especially on certain conditions, where clinics can download and use the application for free and really track whether it's MRIs and other infusion appointments that are happening. So it's really happening there.

Speaker 1:

So a couple other quick ones here. You will see a shift probably toward patient-centric pricing, with lawmakers and the public really attuned to the price tags right now. Pharmacom's strategy is probably going to see more increasingly lean into patient value narratives, focusing on equity access affordability. You're going to see field teams getting equipped with awareness campaigns, with messaging rooted on the impact of the medications, not necessarily the invention of it. So questions like how does this therapy really empower better day-to-day outcomes are going to matter much more than the mechanism of action. Access support programs will play a bigger role in supporting the positioning, and the more data any marketing teams have about user experience, whether it's through digital solutions or predictive insights using AI, the stronger these narratives are going to become.

Speaker 1:

Lastly, here we're really going to see a focus on multi-channel personalization. Budget constraints, price and caps come, they produce pressure on traditional media, and digital innovation can become a path forward because when you have personalized engagement platforms, it really does make it possible to reach each user with the right message, format and cadence, not only at the right time, but also in the right method. So the format mentioned cadence, not only at the right time, but also in the right method. So the format mentioned there. You know, are they more likely to pick up the phone or reply to a text message or do they want to, you know, get an email instead? So we can actually make sure that we're communicating people not in the right time or the right message, but in the right manner, that they're more likely to engage right. So when you get to that form of scalable, intelligent marketing marketing, it's just, it becomes more affordable and it's really measurably more effective. So industry data shows when you send those personalized health messages 54% or more are more likely. The engagement metrics and that's out of IQVIA data from a couple of years ago on their promotional trends, the efficiency when you have personalization nailed down, like Medisafe or some other companies do, it really has transformed, for it's no longer a buzzword, it's really going to be an imperative.

Speaker 1:

In conclusion, let's keep an eye on this. Pharma marketers may look very different no-transcript when generating measurable outcomes data that can justify budgets and enhance strategy. That's where you're going to look for more ROI and digital tools definitely deliver on that. Some key takeaways a marketer is going to start reorienting around outcome-based ROI, if they haven't already. You're going to hear more about that Real-world evidence, adherence data just foundational to future campaigns because they definitely have value beyond the impacts for patients. So you're going to see a lot more value placed on that Differentiation among brands.

Speaker 1:

If it can't be on price, it's going to depend more on experience and value versus just the price right. So advanced solutions can help scale personalized experience, loyalty, affordability, can do it compliantly and preserve impacts for patients and market share for pharma companies. So there's no doubt really that the marketer of tomorrow is going to need more precision, proof patient partnerships even than ever before, so we'll keep an eye on it for you. Thank you so much for tuning into the podcast Post scripts here. If you found this conversation valuable, follow or subscribe for more insights as we keep an eye on the intersection of pharma tech and patient impact. Till next time, keep looking forward. The real work begins after the script is written. Bye now.

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Brian Carr

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