Eliminating Stigma: A consideration of the role the pharmaceutical industry can play

My recent article in Medical Marketing & Media explored the importance of vaccine perceptions in a self-pay market and touched upon the issue of stigma, with the recognition that some diseases or conditions are so taboo in society that for physicians to merely suggest the idea of vaccination to their patients is to risk casting aspersions on their lifestyle. In this blog , I aim to take a more in-depth look at what stigma means in the context of healthcare and consider the opportunities and challenges for pharma.
As specialists in healthcare, stigma is something we frequently encounter across many of the disease areas in which we work. This is most evident when we are conducting research directly with patients and particularly in the emerging markets, which is my team’s focus.  From sexually transmitted diseases to mental illness, shame may be associated with their condition and is a devastating reality for many of the patients we seek to understand.

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The importance of vaccine perceptions in self-pay markets

Published in Medical Marketing & Media, October 2014

A core area of Research Partnership's specialist emerging market division involves assessing the opportunity for new vaccines. In self-pay markets (i.e., those where the cost of the vaccine will not be reimbursed or included on the government's national immunization program), a common starting point involves a simple stratification of the population of the market based on consumer income levels. In this way, the proportion of the population who earn above a certain threshold – and therefore have the ability to pay for the vaccine – can be determined.

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How a mobile methodology elicited a deeper understanding of the key drivers behind physicians’ prescribing decisions

After the recent launch of a competitor drug in cardiology, our client wanted to better understand the degree of differentiation between products, focusing especially on the way physicians justified their selection of specific novel products which are known to be poorly differentiated.

In addition, a better understanding of the overall justification for prescribing novel therapies (versus standard-of-care) was required.

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"Thank you so much everybody for the heroic effort and time put into this project to ensure its successful completion..."

"Thank you so much everybody for the heroic effort and time put into this project to ensure its successful completion. I understand that the timeline has been tough and the stakeholders demanding.  We are currently disseminating the research and aligning stakeholders and would like to let you know that the research is providing great insight into the many, many questions that were raised.  I am very pleased with the results and am sure we will probably work together again in the future."
International Business Analyst
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CEE infographic

Central and Eastern Europe

An overview of the six most-commonly researched, largest pharmaceutical markets in CEE

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