When my company, was about to launch two new high profile Oncology
drugs, the need for a cutting edge, agile analysis solution was a prerequisite
to guarantee success in this competitive market. Verix was chosen after a
careful selection process, to support the sensitive and complicated launch
process of these specialty products. Before adopting Verix, we invested in
several enterprise-wide BI platforms. Alas, outcomes were suboptimal: reporting
was slow to deploy, pushing users to create fragmented reports to meet acute
needs. Even worse, those platforms were unable to change at the speed of
business.
The launch of our new Oncology drugs with Verix’s New
Product Launch analytical application became a remarkable success. We enjoyed
the clear actionable insights and consolidated view of the business - all based
on a single version of the truth across commercial operations. Consequently, we
decided that Verix will be the solution of choice for all new launches and
gradually will be implemented for all Business Units to replace other BI
solutions and enable the company to have one single, effective solution across
the entire organization.
Before Verix, we were using 11 different reporting
platforms, though the need for up-to-date, relevant, coherent information was
not being met. Hundreds of weekly, redundant reports made it hard to reach
effective utilization. Reports were fragmented, often conflicting; and did not
enable actionable insights. Managing drug launches is complicated, with data
coming from many sources that need to be integrated into a comprehensive view
to understand all influences – both in-house (sales, marketing, managed markets,
finance, manufacturing) and external (competitive, market, prescribers, Payers).
The first three months in any new drug’s life are most critical for its success,
requiring constant tweaking of critical components of your strategy, such as
promotions, targeting, messaging and pricing. We needed business insights to
support decisions of senior management, sales leadership and field sales with
KPI’s to measure Managed Markets, sales forecasting and call detailing
activity. Everything had to support a variety of roles (brand specific and sales
specific), with appropriate access limitations per role, so people only see what
they need. Data sources to be integrated include our in-house Data Warehouse,
Veeva (CRM), ProMetrics (Decision Support
tool), LASH (rebate optimization tool), CLM, as well as unstructured data, such
as Speaker Programs, Finance/Forecasting data, Call Plan, Cardinal (healthcare
supplies distribution), Licensing database, Zip-to-territory database, Sales
goals, Ecosystems, and Managed Markets
metrics.
We defined key criteria to evaluate an analytic solution for
the upcoming launches:
- Agility and flexibility: Timing
for the initial implementation as well the flexibility to quickly perform
ongoing change requests were defined as most critical. We wanted a quick
implementation that could be up and running within weeks.
- TCO – Total Cost of Ownership: The TCO includes setup,
initial configuration, change requests, and most critical, keeping the system up
and running. Launch KPIs constantly evolve with the launch, and even
established business units see a lot of change. Analytical tools must reflect
all changes and look only at relevant KPIs to bring real value. Verix pricing
includes changes, which is a huge advantage over previous platforms.
- Business Value: Does the solution answer reporting needs?
Does it provide actionable insights? Does it bring real value to the organization?
A good way to measure the value is the utilization rate, both of the tool and
the reports it generates. We keep measuring usage, which exceeds
expectations with Verix.
Verix helped design specific needs – KPIs, views, and
correlations between various elements. The application monitors the new drug’s performance
and how all components of the launch are influencing one another. Performance is
constantly compared with benchmarks and goals: Prescription such as
prescription rates, market share, new patients trends, and week on week or
month on month growth in market share. Views are tailored to each user - per
physician/account/geography/region/patient. Marketing campaigns and Managed
Markets contracts information are integrated to analyze interdependencies. Dashboards
are defined per user role, so every user sees only what he/she needs to see and
isn’t overwhelmed with irrelevant information. Users can drill down to explore
underlying drivers and get granular information on performance.
Verix conducted focus groups to understand the exact needs
of every user group to be involved in the launch and ensure all requests were incorporated.
“Train the Trainer” sessions with representatives from each user group gave
further feedback. This attention to detail is one of the secrets behind Verix’s
high utilization rate.
Verix is the only product in the market that specializes in Pharma
Launches. We felt that it addressed exactly our needs. Verix’s library of
pre-packaged life science applications enables notoriously quick implementations.
Today, Verix is used by everyone in the company’s commercial operations to make
data-driven decisions: Sales, Sales management, marketing, analysts, and
managed markets. Reporting is no longer a pain-point, but a solution to empower
actionable insights.
After using 11 reporting systems before adopting Verix and
being repeatedly perplexed by their inability to keep up with the pace of the business,
we feel that the greatest, unique advantage of Verix is agility - implementing
endless ongoing change requests within hours or days. The flexibility of the
architecture, the design team and the professional services team in the back
that easily adapt to any necessary change, fully understanding the necessity
for flexible thinking as well as fast implementation. As a result, Verix is
substantially more used than any analytical system adopted by us, and at the
end of the day, far cheaper.
Verix’s domain expertise in the Life science industry made
the implementation flawless. Business rules were transferred with ease, visual components
and KPI’s were designed with the users’ needs in mind; special needs of the
company’s new oncology drug were easily enabled (e.g. 90 day allocation
methodology. Verix implemented this within days, while other systems don’t
support such adjustments.)
Previous reporting experiences with other vendors have
probably jaded people, and created hesitation to try yet another reporting
solution. Seeing Verix in action with our real data crushed all doubt.
The positive experience is influencing other divisions to
adopt Verix as a worldwide standard for our Commercial Operations analytics. By
early 2014, four additional teams will implement Verix as their analytics standard.
The launch of our new oncology drugs was exceptionally successful. Tracking and
monitoring the process from planning to execution was smooth and efficient.
By using Verix’s analytical applications solution, which
includes change requests and any needed tweaks and adjustments in the price, we
saved over $2.5M a year. Moreover, the real gain is in significantly higher usage
rate and business value derived from the solution.
