(4) Pts journey: Qualitative research, patients

Insight based Brand Plan

1. Pts journey: Quantitative analysis
2. Pts journey Qualitative analysis
3. Pts journey : Qualitative research, dr interview
4. Pts journey: Qualitative research, patients
5. Pts journey : To-dos before quant research
6. Pts journey; Quant market research
7. Pts journey: Pts Quant Research
8. Quantify Pts Journey by Market Research Results
9. Pts Journey based Forecast Model
10. Insight for Pts Journey
11. Current/Desired Perception
12. Let's try Insight Workshop
13. Segmentation, Easy to Say, Difficult to Use
14. What is Brand Strategy? CSF?

The theme of this article is “Pts journey qualitative research and patient interviews”. I especially like market research, so I tend to write long articles... At this pace, I worry myself about how many articles I will have to write before Product X is launched. At this pace, I wonder how many articles I will be able to write before the launch of Product X. But I will enjoy writing articles.

In the era of Insight Marketing, however, it is important to understand the patient's needs, and sometimes, patient needs that physicians don't understand or are not aware of can lead to prescription acquisition and improved pts outcome. I think patient surveys are important because they can often lead to improved outcomes. Of course, if it is difficult to recruit patients with rare diseases, we can ask for referrals from patient groups, or if that is too difficult, we can gather information from patient Twitter and blogs. I think it goes without saying that it is very important to know the pts journey and unmet needs of patients, whether it is market research, patient groups, or social networking searches.

Patient interviews are also a standard practice to interview patients along the pts journey. In this case.

• Patients on antihistamine prescription medication for hay fever (5 patients)
• Patients who do not take prescription medication for hay fever (5 patients)

In this section, we will consider the discussion flow for “patients who took antihistamine prescription medication for hay fever. The same flow is basically used for “patients who do not take prescription medication for hay fever,” so let us consider the following flow for “patients who do not take prescription medication for hay fever.

Warm-up、（5 minutes）

Time to chat and icebreak about family, work, etc.

Symptoms of hay fever and actions taken about it.（15 minutes）

• What symptoms of hay fever did you notice for the first time?
• How long ago was that?
• What action did you take after you first felt the symptoms? (HCP immediately? Supplements first? Over-the-counter medicine? etc.)

A hay fever patient has experienced hay fever every year for a long time, and we ask what kind of action he/she took after first becoming aware of hay fever symptoms (i.e., how long it took to go to the hospital).

For example, I have had hay fever ever since I can remember. I had itchy eyes, and when I woke up in the morning, I could not open my eyes due to eye discharge, and I had to put up with it all the time as a child, and the idea of going to a hospital did not exist at that time for me or my parents. And after 1-2 months, I would endure it until the end of spring, and then the hay fever season would be over, and so on.

HCP 1st visit and prescription（15 minutes）

• What made you decide to go to the hospital for hay fever?
• Which hospital did you go to? What was the reason? (Someone's introduction? (Or something like that)
• What did the doctor there tell you? (Was it diagnosed?)
• What kind of medication was prescribed? (oral, nasal, ophthalmic, brand name if you know)
• How did you feel after taking the medicine?

I finally went to the hospital because I was having some inconveniences, such as not being able to concentrate on my studies, as one would expect in high school. I think I went to the same neighborhood internal medicine clinic as my classmate because I heard that he had gotten better after taking prescription medication. It was 30 years ago, so I don't remember what kind of medicine I was given, but I was given a medicine to take, a nasal spray, and eye drops. When I took the medicine, I felt dramatic effects.

In the case of Product X, the main battleground is “how to take market share away from competing antihistamines = Brand Choice”, but there is a possibility that increasing the number of walk-in patients will also become important in the future, so there is no harm in keeping this information. (For such a groundbreaking new drug, foreign companies will pressure you to do whatever Global can do! (And foreign companies will pressurize you to do whatever Global can do!)

Current annual hay fever treatment and prescription（15 minutes）

• Do you still go to the doctor every year for hay fever and receive prescription medication?
• If you continue to go to the hospital every year, why?
• If sometimes you don't go to the hospital, why?
• What kind of medicines are you prescribed? (oral, nasal, ophthalmic, brand name if known)
• How do you feel about them?
• What will you do next year?

I then go to the hospital every year to get a 90-day supply of medicine at once (to make it cheaper) and take it from February until the end of April. I get Xyzal for the oral medication, Nasonex for the nasal drops, and Patanol for the eye drops. I am satisfied with the effectiveness of the medication, and I can almost manage on oral medication alone, but on days when a large amount of pollen is forecast and I have to go out, I take nasal drops before going out. I use eye drops only when I feel itchy. I am thankful that my nose is almost never stuffed up with them. I have been going to the hospital every year to take the medication in this pattern, and I think I will repeat the same thing from next year.

*You can ask them to take a picture of the medication in advance so that you can see the Brand name.

Now, you've heard this much and you have 50 minutes. Since we're here, let's ask about “Product X” again, just as we did with the physician interview!

product X (20 minutes）

The product X profile at this stage is the same as you presented to the physician, about this much. It should be modified to make it easier for the patient to understand.

Dosage and administration: once a month (one dose lasts for one month)

Indication: allergic rhinitis (same as many antihistamines)

Safety and side effects are comparable to those of existing oral medications

Price per day is 100 yen (30 yen per day for 30% of the patient's co-payment = about 900 yen per month)

(about 1.5 times more than existing ones)

"What would you think of such a drug?” and here again, we first ask for spontaneous opinions. What about the things that bother you? The same as in the physician survey, we also ask the patient to probe the patient's opinion. However, unlike physicians, patients are not familiar with medicines, so if they are at a loss for words, it is often necessary to ask for assistance.

• Would you like to take product X? What are your reasons for doing so

It is effective to make presentation materials just as you do with physicians, because they often get stuck when you ask them “What do you think? Specifically, if you present “comments from patients who would like to actively take product X” and, conversely, “comments from patients who do not want to actively take product X,” and ask them to share their impressions, it will be much easier for them to answer. It is the same as when interviewing physicians.

How to summarize the findings of the pts journey in a report?

Now that I have finished explaining the proposed discussion flow for the doctor/patient survey of the pts journey, I will also explain how the report should be written. I also explained the discussion flow along the pts journey, so I recommend you to organize the doctor/patient's statements -> feelings at that time, unmet needs, driver/barrier for each moment of the pts journey, and have it written in the report. Also, don't forget to get a transcript of the statements from the survey company. Sometimes later, at an Insight generation workshop, you may wonder, “What was said in the raw?” It may be easier to convey the message to the MRs if you use the “live statements of the doctors” in your presentation materials. As for the PowerPoint template for the report, if the template changes, the colors and fonts will change when figures and tables are copied and pasted, so it is recommended to send your company's template to the research company from the beginning and have them create the report using your company's template.

To what extent is this the job of market researchers within pharmaceutical companies?

I've written about the pts journey survey process, questions, and report for physicians and patients, but to what extent is it the job of a market researcher for a pharmaceutical company? Where is the boundary of your work with the research company?

As in the case of Product X in this case, about two years before the launch of a new product, I think there are times when “we ask one research firm to work as our partner for two years of research leading up to the launch. In this case, a competition is often held to decide which research firm to commission, but in this case, the product X brand team and the research firm's staff work very closely together, and the research can be designed based on a mutual understanding. Ideally, we only need to give them a brief description of the research, such as “We would like to conduct qualitative and quantitative research for our clients,” and they will quickly come up with the content of the research, taking into account the research design = brand launch plan, as I wrote in my article.  In order to do this, you need to

• be a  representative from the research firm participates in workshops and meetings as a member of the Brand team
• The research firm's representative knows the flow of the company's brand plan

Even if the contract is a comprehensive contract up to Launch, I feel that it is difficult to conduct the expected survey, analysis, and report unless the person in charge of the survey at the pharmaceutical company explains to the survey company, even orally, what I have written about. I feel that it is difficult to conduct the survey, analyze it, and report on it.

In the case of one-off market research that is not a one-time contract before Launch, it is even more difficult to convey the research company's understanding of the disease and the purpose of the research, so the pharmaceutical company's research staff needs to be more firmly involved in the research design. I have a clear image of how to use the survey results, both in the discussion guide for qualitative research and the survey form for quantitative research. However, I am aware that this is a bit much, but I still think that market researchers should have the skills to write their own questionnaires and reports.

In the U.S., some market research firms are involved in the strategy of a pharmaceutical company and work as a research manager or sometimes even a brand manager within the company. I think it would be good if more research firms would enter deeply into pharmaceutical companies like they do in the U.S., especially during the launch phase when the brand team of a pharmaceutical company is temporarily overloaded (1-2 years). I think that is a good idea, and such an era may be coming in the near future.

The next article will be about what to do before doing quantitative research (web research) once you have the results of the qualitative research for the pts journey.