Qualitative research excellence
Our Qualitative Centre of Excellence team ensures we provide the most innovative, intelligent and output-focused qualitative research
Using both new and established methodologies, we design bespoke solutions to give you insights from early-stage commercial development through to launch and beyond.
We help you:
- identify unmet needs
- get a deep understanding of the market and your competitors
- map the patient journey
- explore patient behaviours and needs
- explore the right positioning for your brand
- develop effective communications
We socialise our insights, with visual outputs including animations, videos and infographics, to bring the healthcare experience to life.
Understanding the Healthcare Professional |
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We access the opinions of all HCPs - from KOLs and therapy area experts, specialists and GPs/PCPs, as well as nurses and other healthcare professionals. Our experts draw on their skills in neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), behavioural science and collaborative enquiry to help you understand what is driving perceptions, beliefs and behaviours. We use the insights to recommend ways to influence behaviour change. |
Understanding the Patient |
Today’s patients are much more educated and engaged in decision-making about their health. With pharma taking a more patient-centric approach, commercial teams need to ensure they have an equally deep understanding of the patient as they do the physician.
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Communicating with Customers |
Test the effectiveness of your brand communications with stakeholders across both traditional and digital channels. Our experts support brand positioning and re-positioning, message evaluation and concept testing, through to evaluation of in-person or e-detailing materials. We work with our innovation team to deliver unique methodologies - such as our award-winning use of facial analysis for added insight into reactions to visual stimuli. Our agile iterative methods and workshopping techniques get you to your optimum position quickly and flexibly. |
RP Informs
We offer complimentary one-hour tutorials which explore key qualitative research challenges that our clients are currently experiencing. Our tutorials are designed and delivered by pharma market research specialists with a wealth of experience in conducting qualitative studies.
Anne Cunningham
Director
Anne heads up the Qualitative Centre of Excellence team and is based in the London office. She has over 20 years’ experience in healthcare market research and has particular interest in customer journey, emotional insights and patient research.

Matthew Newman
Director
Matthew heads up our Qualitative Centre of Excellence team and has been integral in developing our approach to market research online communities. Matthew has over 20 years' experience in pharmaceutical market research and has a wealth of experience working across a range of therapy areas. He is particularly skilled working on qualitative projects with insight mining in market landscape and communications research.

- How patient insights were brought to life with graphic novel outputs
The challenge:Our client was developing a novel therapy for the treatment of a rare disease in which patients suffer acute symptomatic attacks; the main burden of disease is not just the acute attacks themselves, but the unpredictability of these attacks, with implications for daily life that include high background stress / worry levels and a great deal of adjustments to daily life. Our client’s new…
read more »How we used WhatsApp and projective exercises to capture deep emotional insights into people living with HIV in South AfricaThe challengeOur client wanted to identify and profile different segments of people living with HIV in order to understand key barriers and leverage points and ensure future engagement with their pharmaceutical portfolio. To achieve this, we needed to conduct an in-depth exploration of attitudes and behaviours of people living with HIV. However, stigma surrounding HIV in South Africa meant that respondents may have been unwilling…
read more »How we used a journey to the future to shape the salesforce strategyThe challenge:Our client was developing a portfolio of innovative treatments and was in the process of recruiting a sales force to support the promotion of this portfolio. Research was required to help our client understand the evolving customer expectations from their sales force within this dynamic environment. The solution:We conducted in-depth qualitative interviews across Latin America with both physicians and sales reps in order to…
read more » - Mapping the patient journey and minding the gap: Seven steps to closing the gap between rhetoric and reality in patient-centricity
Senior Director Angela Duffy was recently interviewed by PME Magazine about the steps needed to close the gap between rhetoric and reality in patient-centricity, and why it’s vital to include patients in every step.
read more »Engaging patient advocacy groups: The key to conducting effective rare disease researchThis article, published by Pharma Times September 2019, outlines why market researchers should reach out to patient advocacy groups when conducting rare disease research.
read more »Emotional Recognition using Facial AnalysisDo you have a poker face or does your expression give you away? According to psychologists, a lot of emotional information can be drawn from our facial expressions, which is valuable to us as market researchers as we are interested in the emotional responses driving people’s attitudes and behaviours. We recently partnered with a tech company called Affectiva which has analysed over 5 million faces…
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