Pfizer quits on Exubera
Oct/18/2007 05:41 Filed in: Pharma
Business
There has been a lot of traffic to the Exubera.com website since Pfizer started the DTC campaign. Normally one would thing that this would lead to more customers but consumers today don't go to just one website they gather information online and do their research. A quick look around on social media, including blogs, shows that some people have had concerns about the effect of Exubera on lung functions. True or not perception is reality and like Byetta is going to find out a little negative buzz can go a long way in keeping customers from asking for your product.
Now I am sure that Pfizer did all the right things; message testing, quant and qual research with the target audience but still the product failed..why? Well first Pfizer failed to counter the negative buzz about the product. The key influencers online did a lot to spread the word and Pfizer stood by and did nothing. Instead they launched a DTC campaign when in fact what the market needed was an underground influencer campaign. Think it can't be done? Well just look at the "buzz" that Byetta received before the latest health waring. Sales of Byetta were increasing largely because of the "buzz" around weight loss in the media and chat rooms and message boards. Then Lilly had to do a stupid thing and launch a DTC campaign. This mistake was compounded by the recent news of Byetta potentially causing pancreatitis. What went wrong? In short, Pfizer made a massive miscalculation about how patients with diabetes manage their disease. What initially attracted the company to Nektar's invention was the idea that inhaled insulin would offer an attractive alternative to patients afraid to stick themselves with needles multiple times a day. But the needle sticks really aren't that much of a hassle, many patients report, and the needles themselves have gotten so thin that they cause virtually no pain.
Even before Pfizer introduced the drug in mid-2006, patients were blasting it (BusinessWeek.com, 7/17/06) on blogs and online discussion groups for people with diabetes. Some patients who tried it were anything but enamored. "It was never popular," says Dr. Joel Zonszein, director of the clinical diabetes center at Montefiore Medical Center in New York. The few patients who did try Exubera, he says, had to endure lung-function tests, and they struggled to figure out Exubera's dosing system. Ultimately, Zonszein says, the patients "just gave up. They preferred injected insulin."
So another drug goes down..wrong product at the wrong time. Somewhere in all the market research data there were warning signs that this product was not right for the market but Pfizer, perhaps of contract requirements, went ahead and marketed the drug anyway. Maybe it was the wrong product at the wrong time or maybe consumers are just a hell of a lot smarter then they were just a little while ago.
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