Implications of Precision Medicine on Marketing and Sales Strategies

The pharmaceutical industry was quite successful for decades to bring new drugs to market with a “one-fits-all” approach. Those drugs were developed and the respective clinical trials were designed to work in a large population and approval was granted based on the average clinical risk-benefit profile in the study population. Individual clinical variations leading to a trial-and-error approach in the treatment decision and not-neglectable proportions of nonresponders were disregarded to large extent. The paradigm shift in clinical research from a classical approach to a more systemic approach in drug development, based on newly acquired knowledge in the areas of genetics, genomics, proteomics, and biomarkers lead to a much higher degree of individualization of treatments. This trend of precision medicine and its relevance and implications for the drug development and treatment process has been widely discussed, but the impact on the marketing and sales strategies of drugs is not yet fully understood. This chapter links the changes in the healthcare provision process to the current marketing and sales toolbox of the pharmaceutical industry and highlights necessary adaptations in the different phases of the life cycle management and approach of different stakeholders. It is suggested due to the significant impact of precision medicine on the healthcare provision, the classical one-fits-all toolbox and instruments need careful revision and assessment and cannot be applied fully in the new era of healthcare provision.