Companies in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry are  confronting significant short term and long-term financial challenges that range from generic competition,  upcoming patent expirations, and pending healthcare legislation and reforms in both the US and EU. These challenges are forcing the industry to "rethink" everything from R&D to Marketing. With future growth in the US and EU limited, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies are now looking to emerging market opportunities in Brazil, Russia, India, and China to drive future revenues. Europe is now wrestling with the cost-effectiveness of treatments and faced with a changing regulatory landscape which is likely to have profound impacts on the profitability of their core business and the R&D and drug production processes.  Today market access remains the biggest challenge – how to get our products to market faster and cheaper, whilst capitalising on the patent periods, this requires an intimate knowledge of the stakeholder landscape and the impact their influence may have on future requirements for launching new drugs nationally and internationally.

New technologies including biotechnology and nanotechnology, coupled with the increasingly personalised nature of treatments, the constantly changing legislative environment, the massive involvement of patients in forums, and the surge in the number of epidemics are not only sources of risk, but also of opportunities. Therefore, we must take a strategic and proactive approach to market access across key opinion leaders and stakeholder engagement.

Identifying new stakeholders to share knowledge and develop long-term dialogue, handling the across-the-board management of all activities involved in the marketing of medicines and finally measuring the impact of your activities on the share of voice of the various medicines available on the market are all key aspects of effective communication.