An interview with Salil Kallianpur - Executive VP at GSK Primary Care on the state of digital in pharma marketing and pointers for digital marketing success.
The pharma industry in India is entering a very interesting variant of the post-digital marketing era. The term “post-digital marketing” is used to depict a state where the lines between physical and digital blur considerably for a customer. However, in the context of pharma, this means a state where the industry has stopped questioning the need for digital and has begun to implement very interesting digital marketing initiatives.
Patient Centricity, the most talked, least understood and poorly implemented strategy in our domain, if holistically approached and sincerely implemented, can truly transform and lead us towards a culture of ‘Healthcare is a Responsibility’. If every person in the life sciences organization at every level, is motivated, trained and equipped to understand, what is of value to the Patient and then strive towards co-creating, creating or contributing, we can travel a huge distance. Is this ‘Value’ paradigm implementable? Well, some are already doing it...
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To me, patient centricity is as fascinating a concept as it is contradictory. It is fascinating because it puts power into the hands of the patient. And it is contradictory because pharma does not like giving away power over its messages or processes. Pharma has traditionally never enjoyed interaction and has depended on ‘pushing’ messages across rather than having ‘conversations’. It probably also explains why we make do with medical reps who are not the sharpest knives in the drawer and scarcely invest in sharpening them.
In the lockdown, while I was on regular OPD and ICU rounds at a COVID hospital, I started noticing some mild symptoms of the Coronavirus infection. Being in the medical field and considering the severity of the pandemic situation then, I was very careful and cautious, and observed the symptoms closely. The symptoms persisted and I had to self-quarantine until the medical test reports came. It was important for me to isolate myself from the rest of the medical team and prevent the spread of the virus. Finally, the report came: I was COVID positive!
Stunned and slightly devastated; I broke the news to my family who could not believe it either. As a doctor, I could only treat, comfort and empathize with the COVID patients undergoing treatment; completely isolated from their loved ones. But now, I could actually feel the uncertainty of the situation. I was hospitalized and continued to experience body-ache during the admission. It was a stressful situation where I felt anxious and stressed about everything.
My CT scan reports showed mild lung infection on the day of admission but as the cytokines storm developed, my lungs were 76 % damaged in 3-5 days and I was short of breath and my oxygen level deteriorated to less than 80. I was shifted to an ICU with high-flow oxygen and was on a BiPap machine which I had purchased a few weeks ago for the hospital and never imagined that I would be using myself one day.