The Life Cycle of a Drug: Patient Retention

Returning to a series I started earlier this year, I refer you to Patient Retention Plan in the bar graph found in the first post of the series. For a brand name drug, an increasingly popular patient retention plan consists of financial assistance, communications, and data analysis. Prescription abandonment becomes evident at a co-payment of about $30, and a $50+ co-pay roughly doubles the rate. This means that the pharmaceutical company is not receiving money from either patients or their insurers. A Cutting Edge Information report from 2006 estimated these losses at $30 billion for the industry and $8 billion for pharmacies. Industry financial assistance via co-pay card programs has since been the fastest-growing method to combat these losses, from 31% in 2008 to 54% in 2009, as per this Cegedim white paper. (See all of Figure 8, PDF p. 10, for other methods.)

Brand loyalty is very important to a company when alternative brand name drugs or generic drugs are available at a lower cost, so once a patient is enrolled the pharmaceutical company makes the most of their opportunity to build loyalty to their brand by direct, two-way communication. Patients are encouraged to report side effects and ask questions and will also be the recipients of information and refill reminders. All this information becomes part of a pharmaceutical company's database, which is used to calculate how many dollars the company receives for every dollar spent on the program.

The Life Cycle of a Drug: Pediatric Exclusivity

The Life Cycle of a Drug: Pediatric Exclusivity - Update

The Life Cycle of a Drug: New Indication

The Life Cycle of a Drug: New Formulation

Prescription Abandonment by People with Private Health Insurance