Pharmaceutical market research: a practical guide for small teams

Pharmaceutical market research is how a company learns about the market for a medicine: how patients are treated today, which products compete, who decides what gets prescribed and paid for, and what would make prescribers change. A small team can do a useful first round with public trial and approval data plus a set of interviews with prescribers, pharmacists and payer staff. The one step you cannot skip is deciding, before any interview, how you will handle adverse events that participants mention.

This page is for teams researching a medicine market. If you sell software or services to drug companies, that is ordinary business-to-business research; see the section near the end.

A worked example: a small biotech sizing up a switch

Suppose a small biotech has an injectable treatment in mid-stage trials for a chronic skin condition. Before planning a larger study, the team wants to know how specialists choose between current treatments, why patients move from one to the next, and what payers require before they cover a newer option. This example is hypothetical and used throughout the page.

Start with public trial and approval data

Two free U.S. government sources answer a lot of the competitive questions before you talk to anyone.

ClinicalTrials.gov describes itself as the world's largest database of privately and publicly funded clinical studies. Each record shows what is being studied, who can take part, where the study runs and who to contact. The information comes from the sponsor or investigator, and a listing does not mean the government has evaluated the study. NLM fact sheet For the example, searching the condition shows which companies are testing what, and at which stage.

Drugs@FDA covers approved products. Its records include approval histories, and the approved label describes what a drug is used for, who should take it, side effects and safety information. FDA Drugs@FDA glossary Reading the labels of the current treatments gives you the vocabulary prescribers will use and the claims your product would be compared against. For more on desk research, see secondary market research.

Choose who to interview

EPHMRA, a European pharmaceutical market research association, defines a healthcare professional broadly: anyone licensed in medicine, dentistry, pharmacy or nursing, or anyone who administers, prescribes, purchases, recommends or supplies a medicine. That can include a payer with budget responsibility. EPHMRA guidelines For the example, a first round might include:

• Prescribers: dermatologists who treat the condition often, in both academic and community practice.
• Pharmacists and nurses: people who handle injections, refills and patient questions.
• Payer and access staff: people who write or apply coverage rules for the drug class.

Ask about treatment decisions in general terms: "When a patient stops responding to the first treatment, what do you usually try next, and why?" Ask for patterns across patients, not details of any one person. Our guide to questions for an unfamiliar industry has more prompts.

Plan adverse event reporting before the first call

If your company holds the license for a medicine discussed in the research, industry guidelines expect you to capture and pass on any adverse events that come up. EPHMRA's guidelines say that participants must be told about this reporting duty when they are recruited and again at the start of the interview; that adverse events must reach the company's safety team within one business day; and that a report needs an identifiable reporter, an identifiable patient or group of patients, a suspected product and a suspected event. They also say the duty does not apply to mentions of products whose license the commissioning company does not hold. EPHMRA guidelines

If your product is still in trials, ask your safety or pharmacovigilance lead how this applies to you. If you have marketed products, agree the process with that team before recruiting, as the Insights Association recommends. The same guidelines say participants' personal details go to the safety team only with consent or another lawful basis, and note country exceptions such as Germany.

Handle payments to physicians carefully

In the U.S., the Sunshine Act requires drug and device manufacturers to report many payments to physicians. The Insights Association explains that research payments made through a third party are excluded when the manufacturer does not know the physician's identity, and argues that participants' identities should not go to the sponsor without their consent. Insights Association If you are a manufacturer and plan to pay physicians directly, get legal advice first. For how to set the amount, see our research incentive budget guide.

If you sell to drug companies instead

A company selling, say, trial-management software or packaging services to pharmaceutical firms is researching buyers, not a medicine market. The approach in B2B market research applies: find the people who do the work and the people who approve the budget. People who work at drug companies may have their own safety-reporting duties if a product problem comes up, so tell interviewees at the start that you are not asking about specific patients or products, and check with counsel if you are unsure how this applies.

For this kind of research, Instant Expert can help you reach people inside drug companies. You describe the experience you need, review the people it finds, and it sends your invitations; you pay for the calls that get booked. Directory pages such as product professionals in pharmaceuticals, procurement professionals in pharmaceuticals and operations professionals in clinical research show the kind of profiles you might shortlist.

A checklist before fieldwork

1. Write the decision and the questions that would change it.
2. Read the trial records and current labels for the condition.
3. List prescribers, pharmacists or nurses, and payer staff to interview.
4. Settle adverse event reporting and payment rules with your safety and legal leads.
5. Tell every participant, at recruitment and at the start, what will be reported.

If you know the roles you need, start a search with a one-sentence description of the experience.