Shut down these 6 obstacles to oncology drug success

Providers play a particularly prominent role in oncology drug utilization. Launch success—and consistent ensuing growth—may hinge on biopharma commercial teams understanding of providers and capitalizing on the way oncology drug management decisions are made.

Most pharmaceutical brand and market access teams focus their time and energy on what motivates payers to make one drug more accessible than another. They closely monitor shifts in formularies and make big investments in tools and people to better position their products and gain favor with commercial insurance companies as well as Medicare and Medicaid. They strike multimillion-dollar deals with commercial payers to gain traction.
Yet, the most successful biopharma organizations focus efforts on both payers and healthcare provider organizations. Oncology providers wield tremendous influence over what drugs are accessible and what is prescribed.
For cancer drug manufacturers, that leads to the million-dollar question: “How can we increase our brand’s market share without a clear understanding of provider drug management?
To clearly see how oncology drug management decisions are made, consider six pervasive gaps in oncology brand strategies. Closing these gaps can help you follow the rules of oncology more closely—and score more wins.

In 2022, 13,365 oncologists were engaged in patient care in the United States across at least 1,602 oncology practices. The individual doctors inside these provider networks make prescribing decisions based in part on their organization’s recommendations.

No single pharmaceutical company has the time, relationships and resources required to monitor prescribing decisions in every healthcare system across the country. And yet, biopharma commercial teams need provider system-level insights to see patterns of behavior and shift their strategies for growth.
Successful brands access provider data to understand the trends impacting their product and adjust their strategy to maximize uptake at the local level.

Without access to reliable data, oncology leaders rely on anecdotal evidence to guide their strategies. They often review analogs and case studies on products in the within the same cancer type. But this approach leaves many questions unanswered:

• What are the historic drug restrictions in place at a specific cancer care organization?
• How does a particular provider group evaluate a drug for inclusion in their drug management systems?
• Why would a cancer care organization prefer one drug over another?

Unsurprisingly, when answers are drawn from anecdotes and general data they result in faulty strategies and confounding results.
By using measurable data that answers truly valuable questions about how oncology drug management decisions are made, brands can build much more robust strategies.

Hospitals, oncology care healthcare systems, and community-based practices use treatment plans, also known as protocols, to guide individual HCPs to prescribe certain cancer drugs. Typically, these treatment plans are used to created order sets within a provider’s EHR platform. A product’s presence on — or absence from — these treatment plans is a key driver of product uptake rates in an increasing number of top healthcare provider organizations.
Unfortunately, many biopharma commercial teams aren’t well versed in treatment plans, and most aren’t privy to information about which oncology products appear on providers’ treatment plans or protocols.
Closing this gap can show a brand team a much clearer path to growing Rx uptake at each of their provider organization targets.

Large, sophisticated cancer providers deploy oncology-certified pharmacists, oncologists, and other advisors to define treatment options for their organization to utilize with their patients.

• What if you had monthly insights into how these organizations make decisions? What would you ask them?
• How useful would that information be in guiding how you position your drug?

These experts are critical to deciding whether a cancer drug is prescribed. Having access to these people to find out what they are restricting or preferring can lead to valuable insights.
While oncology brand leaders don’t have the time or resources to develop and nurture these kinds of connections on their own, they can use a partner to access this information and fill the gap.

Most healthcare organizations rely on a combination of platforms to guide what is prescribed to their patients. These factors can include formularies, treatment plans and clinical pathways, as well as, to a lesser extent, direct HCP feedback.
Once a drug is FDA approved and on compendium, these platforms are activated to dictate if and how a drug is preferred — or if it even exists in the organization’s electronic health record at all.
Unfortunately, most biopharma brands have little insight into how these decisions are made regarding either their own products or their competitors’.
When an oncology brand leader knows which factors truly influence market access at the healthcare organization level — and how influential each lever is — they can build more targeted strategies to maximize uptake.

When an oncology brand has a disappointing launch or loses market share, pharma leaders often point the finger at market access. They need to widen their lineup of suspects. Market access might be a common culprit, but it isn’t always to blame.
When a brand’s utilization fluctuates, digging deeper into how oncology drug management decisions are made — the factors beyond payer-focused market access — can uncover the real reasons behind the shifts. That insight enables brands to respond nimbly, swiftly and effectively.

Do you have the healthcare provider system data it takes to know how oncology drug management decisions are made?

Quickly assess how well you fill the six gaps and find out if they are preventing your product from achieving launch success and consistent growth.