[June 15, 2007]

CRM for Pharmaceutical Firms to Include OnDemand Formulary Data

By David Sims

TMCnet Contributing Editor

Verticals onDemand, a vendor of onDemand CRM products for the life sciences industry, and MediMedia Information Technologies, a division of MediMedia USA, have announced that they will integrate their products to provide pharmaceutical managed care teams with what officials from both firms are calling "the first onDemand CRM product pre-loaded with formulary data."

For the first time, officials from both firms say, managed care account managers can deploy CRM applications pre-loaded with formulary data. Formulary data will be automatically updated through Web services and the Salesforce.com (News - Alert) API

The new Software as a Service (SaaS (News - Alert)) CRM product, officials from both companies say, makes it "easy to load, update, and route formulary data, empowering managed care account managers with up-to-the-minute formulary details at a glance." Data updates and system assimilation occur automatically, without IT staff intervention.

According to both companies, managed care is underserved by traditional IT providers, which typically impose broad-spectrum sales systems on the very specialized area of managed care. Matt Wallach, vice president of sales and marketing for Verticals onDemand, says until now, "there was no easy way for managed care account managers to efficiently support their customers and see critical formulary data at the same time."

Verticals onDemand's flagship products are VBioPharma, for global biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, and VMedical, for global medical and surgical device companies. It's a privately-held company headquartered in Pleasanton, California. MediMedia Information Technologies sells plan specific formulary data.

According to a report recently published by research firm Cutting Edge Information, new CRM initiatives for the pharmaceutical industry track interactions with different audiences and help companies better understand their key customers.

"When it comes to drugs, mass marketing techniques that serve other industries often fail to create lasting customer connections," the report finds. Instead, companies turn to more direct, personalized communications to build relationships with doctors and patients.

Cutting Edge Information identified several reasons why some pharmaceutical companies are leading the field in customer relationship management. Organizations on the cutting edge of CRM tend to share seven core principles of success: They invest adequate resources at the outset of the initiative and provide sufficient investments annually to support the program, create an internal champion for CRM through the structuring of a CRM department, team or ad hoc group and establish a centralized database to share knowledge across the company.

They also define CRM and educate internal parties to ensure buy-in, understand target audiences and provide customized messages via preferred media touch points, recognize that CRM requires a long-term commitment, in terms of both resources and measurements and improve their programs by continuously monitoring progress and industry advancements.

David Sims is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To see more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.

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