{"id":272729,"date":"2010-02-03T15:18:54","date_gmt":"2010-02-03T20:18:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.wsj.com\/health\/2010\/02\/03\/pfizers-china-strategy-feet-on-the-street-key-opinion-leaders\/"},"modified":"2010-02-03T15:18:54","modified_gmt":"2010-02-03T20:18:54","slug":"pfizer%e2%80%99s-china-strategy-%e2%80%98feet-on-the-street%e2%80%99-%e2%80%98key-opinion-leaders%e2%80%99","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/272729","title":{"rendered":"Pfizer\u2019s China Strategy: \u2018Feet On the Street,\u2019 \u2018Key Opinion Leaders\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/media\/China_C_20090625154940.jpg\" alt=\"China\" align=\"right\"\/>Pfizer&#8217;s China strategy came up a few times today in the company&#8217;s earnings call with analysts. <\/p>\n<p>In some ways, the approach sounds like pharma&#8217;s strategy in the U.S. a few years back, when the industry was <a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB105546495483941400.html\" >swimming with sales reps<\/a> and companies were aggressively wooing &#8220;key opinion leaders&#8221; &#8212; top physicians who could influence other docs.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s how <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pfizer.com\/about\/leadership_and_structure\/leadership_executives_read.jsp\" >Ian Read<\/a>, president of Pfizer&#8217;s drugs business, framed the Chinese market and Pfizer&#8217;s strategy in the country, according to a transcript from Thomson Reuters:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>&#8230; in large part it is an out-of-pocket market, so brand loyalty and quality is really important. &#8230; our total portfolio is growing, and it is not as impacted as the United States or Europe is by [generic competition]. So this requires what I would call a traditional investment thesis, feet on the street, field force, relationships with physicians &#8230; invest with key opinion leaders<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Last month, Pfizer <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.wsj.com\/health\/2010\/01\/19\/pfizers-looking-for-more-sales-reps-in-china\/\" >said<\/a> it planned to increase its sales force in China to 3,200, from about 2,300 now. That comes as the company makes some <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.wsj.com\/health\/2010\/01\/07\/a-little-bit-more-on-the-job-cuts-at-merck-pfizer\/\">significant cuts<\/a> to its total global workforce.<\/p>\n<p>Plenty of drug makers are moving in this direction. <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.wsj.com\/health\/2009\/10\/21\/eli-lilly-adds-jobs-plans-cuts\/\" >Eli Lilly&#8217;s<\/a> also hiring sales reps in China, and <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.wsj.com\/health\/2009\/10\/28\/where-gsk-is-cutting-sales-reps-and-where-its-adding-them\/\" >GlaxoSmithKline<\/a> has been busy bulking up its sales force in &#8220;emerging and Asia Pacific markets,&#8221; according to the company&#8217;s CEO.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/BT-CO-20100203-710371.html\" >Dow Jones Newswires<\/a> has more from Pfizer&#8217;s conference call.<\/p>\n<p><em>Map: iStockphoto<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~at\/53_dnWB9zuK9YLu-1av19b4_6CQ\/0\/da\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~at\/53_dnWB9zuK9YLu-1av19b4_6CQ\/0\/di\" border=\"0\" ismap=\"true\"><\/img><\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~at\/53_dnWB9zuK9YLu-1av19b4_6CQ\/1\/da\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~at\/53_dnWB9zuK9YLu-1av19b4_6CQ\/1\/di\" border=\"0\" ismap=\"true\"><\/img><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"feedflare\">\n<a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/wsj\/health\/feed?a=qES3jjKdjkc:ErTn2OsbUr8:yIl2AUoC8zA\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/wsj\/health\/feed?d=yIl2AUoC8zA\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/wsj\/health\/feed?a=qES3jjKdjkc:ErTn2OsbUr8:D7DqB2pKExk\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/wsj\/health\/feed?i=qES3jjKdjkc:ErTn2OsbUr8:D7DqB2pKExk\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/wsj\/health\/feed?a=qES3jjKdjkc:ErTn2OsbUr8:F7zBnMyn0Lo\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/wsj\/health\/feed?i=qES3jjKdjkc:ErTn2OsbUr8:F7zBnMyn0Lo\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/wsj\/health\/feed?a=qES3jjKdjkc:ErTn2OsbUr8:V_sGLiPBpWU\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/wsj\/health\/feed?i=qES3jjKdjkc:ErTn2OsbUr8:V_sGLiPBpWU\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/wsj\/health\/feed?a=qES3jjKdjkc:ErTn2OsbUr8:qj6IDK7rITs\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/wsj\/health\/feed?d=qj6IDK7rITs\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/wsj\/health\/feed\/~4\/qES3jjKdjkc\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pfizer&#8217;s China strategy came up a few times today in the company&#8217;s earnings call with analysts. In some ways, the approach sounds like pharma&#8217;s strategy in the U.S. a few years back, when the industry was swimming with sales reps and companies were aggressively wooing &#8220;key opinion leaders&#8221; &#8212; top physicians who could influence other [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":650,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-272729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/650"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272729\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}