SDI Reports: Top 20% Of Endocrinologists Write 95% Of New-To-Brand Oral Diabetes Prescriptions - Percentages Differ For GPs

Main Category: Diabetes
Article Date: 01 Oct 2008 - 11:00 PDT

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According to SDI, the leader in innovative analytics for the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries, 20% of endocrinologists who wrote prescriptions for oral diabetes therapies from September 2007 through August 2008 were responsible for 95% of new-to-brand prescriptions in that specialty; that is, new product starts, add-on therapy, or product switches.

This contrasts with primary care prescribers, among whom the top 20% were accountable for 78% of new-to-brand oral diabetes prescriptions. In the case of primary care prescribers, prescription writing for oral diabetes medications was more diffuse. The top 30% of prescribers were accountable for 90% of new-to-brand prescriptions in this group.

Identifying which prescribers write a high number of new-to-brand prescriptions is significant because these prescribers are the key drivers of market growth. The traditional method of evaluating prescribers based on total prescriptions, which include renewals and refills, does not accurately identify customer segments that have the most influence on generating new market volume.

In the example above, a company could target just 20% of the top endocrinologists to reach those driving the prescriptions that represent true new business. For primary care, they would need to target the top 30% of prescribers. Utilizing SDI patient-level data, pharmaceutical companies can identify prescribers most likely to drive new prescription volume, enabling them to refine their promotional strategies and improve field sales force performance.

Only SDI's longitudinal data categorizes all prescriptions in its database, utilizing de-identified patient-level metrics that track new prescriptions, product switching, and add-on therapies. This allows SDI to help its clients better determine how to refine the deployment of sales and marketing resources for maximum market impact.

About SDI

Since 1982, SDI has been delivering innovative healthcare data products and analytic services to the pharmaceutical, biotech, healthcare, medical device, financial services, and consumer packaged goods industries. SDI is the leading provider of de-identified patient-level data analytics and offers a broad array of solutions and insights across the continuum of care. These include custom and syndicated patient-level data studies; localized disease and treatment surveillance and projection; market research audits; healthcare profiles; comprehensive managed care offerings; clinical trial optimization; direct-to-patient pharmacy programs; marketing effectiveness; sales targeting and compensation products; data integration, warehousing, and mining; list services; and direct marketing services. Its current roster includes the top 50 pharmaceutical/biotech companies.

SDI