Patients the genuine key to Market Access, not a NICE to have.

Market Access has become the most important strategic pillar in pharma and with this the most overused business cliche.

When you look at the focus, experience and expertise of most Market Access teams in the UK it is not difficult to see who the important stakeholders are; Health Technology Appraisal and the dreaded 'Payor' (is it just me who hates this term?).

In order to look like we are tackling this key challenge we have developed a whole new KOL landscape based around 'commissioning'.

This translates in the field as forcing our pre and post marketing messages on overworked 'Prescribing Advisors' and 'Medicines Management' (both hilariously ironic job titles that could come straight out of 1984). If we are lucky we get to work with more senior, genuine commissioners.

It is very difficult in these circumstances to communicate the true value of our medicines to society and even harder to translate this into the dramatic personal impact this could have on someones life.

Unfortunately it often means high level sales teams renamed and re-skilled, interacting with cynical under informaed NHS Management and Pharmacy Staff who should be ashamed of their respect and understanding of the pharmaceutical industry in the UK.

The funny thing is that in the new environment the most important people to Market Access are the patients and carers themselves. How many MA teams have the expertise to deal with that? Because of the understandable focus and talent set to work on HTA, they are often not even on the radar let alone part of a strategy.

The explosion in new media has completely changed the way we interact with each other and the world around us. The NHS has always managed resources through Demand, if people did not know about a drug or service then their local GP wasn't going to be the one to tell them about it. Google, Facebook, Twitter, PatientsLikeMe has changed all of this.

If you are not getting the best treatment then you will know about it and probably do something about it.

NHS, Nice, SMC and AWMG have one thing in common, they are scared to death of the patient voice.

Bring on the new world, I would not want to be the one telling a person caring for a loved one with Alzheimer's they are not worth the investment in new therapy, or crushing new hope in a patient dying of cancer.

The Real Social Media Question for Pharma

There is a tremendous amount of discussion at the moment about how trust is now the key to corporate reputation. That is fine. The trouble is that you can't buy trust. Even more frustratingly it is about behaviour and communication over a long period of time, i.e. there is no quick fix.

Trust is something that has frustrated and fixated the pharmaceutical industry for years. The latest Edelman Trust Barometer suggested that about 53% of educated top quartile participants trust pharma-thank God for bankers and the insurance industry.

The ABPI is currently engaged in a very laudable project called VITA (Value, Innovation, trust and Access). A part of this Trust stream has involved engagement with stakeholders through social media. I obviuosly support this development, I just have one problem.

Developing a twitter presence or constructing a facebook page is not a strategic objective. I wish people who are desperately trying to catch up with the social media revolution (like an elephant on roller skates) would stop talking platforms and start thinking about what actually lies behind this dramatic change in communications-open and transparent dialogue.

If you don't change how you listen to your customers or stakeholders and you continue to push out the same messages, hoping you won't get any difficult questions, you have completely missed the point. "How can we develop a presence on twitter while minimising the risk?"

The risk that people may start to understand how important their opinions really are?

If large pharma can hide behind regulation and good practice to subvert the social media conversation and remove any interaction that is uncomfortable, we will do even further damage to our industry. An industry I am proud to work for.

I was pleased to have been involved in the Q&A document being produced by the PM Society for the PMCPA, outling recommendations for the pharmaceutical industry in digital media. We have to understand as an industry that control is dead, the next great challenge is to have influence. If not, how can we be a force for good in the future?

When people care, they want to be part of an interactive community. If people want to ask about what really constitutes value in medicines? why we have withheld clinical data for a differential marketing positions? Or how much money we have given to the recent Haiti disaster? We should make sure we have a good answer.