The changing faces of medical sales

In the early 90's the Medical sales role was a stand alone role in which the medical rep would handle all aspects of selling for a prescription medicine, from selling the concept to the GP. to seeing retail pharmacists, wholesalers and hospitals. Typical medical sales team ranged from 40 to 70 strong but each rep would have their own distinct territory to work.

In around 1992, a change occurred which was to have dramatic effects on the medical sales landscape. Astra, as they were then, made a decision to 'double up' their medical sales team to have two reps on one patch, and then up to three. The idea was to generate business through shear noise in the market place, which at the time was GI and respiratory. Although arguably not a profitable move in the short term there was no question it of the gains in market share. Consequently, Glaxo were forced to follow. It's easy to see how this became a slippery slope for pharmaceutical companies until beyond the mid nineties were some major players, such as Pfizer, were running up to eight medical sales people per territory.

Although this was clearly not profitable in the short term, the notion was that, at some point before the patent ran out, this resource could be diminished for the to allow the product to break a profit before the patent expired. From the point of view of medical sales staff and their managers, the rules of the game became very different. It was no longer possible to clearly see who was delivering results and who wasn't. When results were strong, each individual would claim the glory, when they were weak, the finger would be pointed t their medical sales peers. There were also the practical problems of reps falling over each other in the same surgeries, customers becoming frustrated at increased levels of contact. Medical sales managers jobs became very much more difficult as they were unable to isolate good and poor performance in order to deal with it.

Along with the increased density of medical  reps, came the increased specialisation. Roles were created to focus upon particular customer groups, hospital specialists, NHS specialists, nurse specialists and so on. The idea here was to create more strength in depth with each building and maintaining strong links into their particular area of medical sales. The weakness of this approach is that no one party has overall accountability for results. Indeed with some groups such as NHS liaison, it was debatable what results could be measured and accounted for by this role.

Now in 2007, the pendulum is swinging back towards it's position before the 1990's. The risks to pharmaceutical companies developing new treatments has increased. Groups such as NICE (national institute of clinical excellence) are able to effectively block the sales of new drugs once they reach the market, after they may have costs millions to reach this point. This has hit many companies operating expensive medical sales teams hard and has left them considering whether the pursuit of medium and long term profit is acceptable, in favour of a shorter term approach. Consequently, the tide is now returning to medical sales teams based upon one rep per territory, fully accountable, easier to monitor success and establish and monitor profitable practises.

These changes have also fuelled a rise in the use of contract medical rep teams hired by companies taking a shorter term view and less willing to take the risk. The good news is, medical sales roles of this nature are more fulfilling, and once the industry settles, are likely to be more stable once again for those in them.