Charlie Smith Charlotte Mora Marketing 2014 GEM HME Tangent90
Introduction The distribution of clinical paper reprints both in and out of the meetings and conferences market is both a necessity and a high cost. Where scientific content is required, from sources such as academic journals and pharmaceutical research, the cost for reproducing the content itself should not be inflated by any distribution costs. It can be a challenge to track and monitor content requested, whether brochures taken at trade fairs, or a business card picked up at a meeting. In this article, we will look at some of the challenges facing the industry in terms of reprint distribution. We will also look at the size of the reprint distribution market, the cost of reprint distribution and what digital solutions currently exist. The Sunshine Act Under the Sunshine Act, data on payments and gifts made to physicians and teaching hospitals by medical device and pharmaceutical companies must be publicly available on a searchable federal database, starting in September 2014. A recent survey of physicians indicates that most do not know about these requirements, and that 63 per cent of those surveyed were deeply concerned about the searchable website. 1 It is essential that the pharmaceutical industry gets to grips with these requirements, and in particular, the cumulative impact that distribution of essentially low monetary value items, such as reprints, will have on physician and industry compliance with the Sunshine Act s requirement for absolute transparency. The pharmaceutical industry would benefit from centralised document handling and distribution, which would give it both essential statistics on download figures, as well as generating user profiles (thus capturing data for marketing purposes), and reducing print costs. 1. What Do You Know About the Sunshine Act? http://www.aaos.org/news/aaosnow/apr13/advocacy6.asp
How big is the market for reprint distribution? Number of Meetings 1963-2012 (5 year aggregated data) 60000 54,844 50000 40000 40,823 30000 20000 10000 1,795 2,695 4,057 5,977 8,585 12,260 16,861 25,535 0 1963-67 Source: ICCA September 2013 68-72 73-77 78-82 83-87 88-92 93-97 98-02 03-07 08-12 Total for the period: 173,432 1% of these took place in the 1st period ( 63-67) and 31.6% in the last period ( 08-12) Notably, this exponential growth pattern continues to show during the economic recession of the recent years. Figure 1. [Table 1] Exponential growth of International congresses. 2 Year Number of meetings 1963-67 1,795 1968-72 2,695 1973-77 4,057 1978-82 5,977 1983-87 8,585 1988-92 12,260 1993-97 16,861 1998-2002 25,535 2003-07 40,823 2008-12 54,844 Total 173,432 2. International Congress and Convention Association A Modern History of International Association Meetings 1963 2012. Published by the ICCA September 2013.
Over the last 50 years the number of meetings has grown by around 10% each year, and was unaffected by the economic recession of recent years. It is reasonable to assume, therefore, that there will be a congruent increase in the requirement for reprint distribution, in line with the increasing number of congresses and meetings that take place. Meeting this demand while controlling or even reducing the costs of document print and distribution is a high priority for pharmaceutical industry procurement leads. The Cost of Reprint Distribution 25,000,000 20,000,000 Estimated Total number of Participants (Association Meetings Market 1963-2012) 21,962,221 15,000,000 10,000,000 5,000,000 2,069,060 0 1963-67 68-72 73-77 78-82 83-87 88-92 93-97 98-02 03-07 08-12 Growth from just over 2million 1st period ( 63-67) to almost 22m in the last period ( 08-12) Source: ICCA September 2013 Figure 2. Cost of Reprint Distribution The total number of meeting participants grew to just under 22 million between 2008-2012 (Figure 2), in stark comparison to 50 years ago where there were just over 2 million meeting delegates between 1963 and 1967. Based on current figures of close to 5.5 million participants per year (2001 2012), assuming an average of 10 documents per participant, close to 55 million documents are distributed at congresses and conventions each year. The cost of printing and distributing these documents by traditional methods would be far greater than the introduction of a digital solution to centralise and manage all collateral.
Of course the pharmaceutical industry does not only use scientific and clinical paper reprints in the setting of meetings and conferences. Globally, the industry is thought to be the largest purchaser of reprints, 3 an assumption borne out by the reprint sales figures for the leading international clinical journals (Table 2). Financial Implications (Median and Maximum costs for reprint orders) JOURNAL REPRINT ORDER COST Median Maximum BMJ 12,458 132,805 Journal of Neurology & Psychiatry 7,624 132,805 Gut 4,002 260,055 Heart 6,071 334,240 The Lancet 287,353 1,551,794 Lancet Neurology 14,336 87,244 Lancet Oncology 24,390 104,857 1.00 ( 1.24; $1.57) May 2014 The cost of the median and largest reprint order for each journal. This ranged from 4,002 (Gut) to 1,551,794 (The Lancet) Table 2. Financial Implications 3 The table above shows the average reprint orders for the top reprinted articles by journal. Lancet had by far the highest median number of reprints, with a median order of 126,350 for its high reprint group (range 24,000-835,100). The BMJ and Lancet Oncology had median reprint orders greater than 10,000 (13,248 and 10,500, respectively), whereas the other journals had median reprint orders of 5200 or less. Notably, 62.3% of reprint orders in Lancet were in excess of 100,000 copies, higher than the 24% found by other researchers. 3 3. The British Medical Journal: High reprint orders in medical journals and pharmaceutical industry funding: case-control study - http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e4212
What solutions exist and what do they provide? Listed below are some of the current products in the market that have developed to provide digital distribution solutions, using similar technology. Omnidox (Box-it) Offers secure document management, business processing, search functionality, instant record retrieval and document distribution, using Cloud-based technology. 4 Huddle Offers safe document sharing across multiple devices (desktop, tablet, smart-phone), with version control, document management time stamp and activity log, with permission-based access for people outside the organisation. 5 Elsevier eprint Physician Capture A platform to track, monitor and assign a value to the reprints to which healthcare professionals have been given access. 6 Provides real-time reports of who documents have been given to, how many times they have been accessed and the total value of the documents, simplifying reporting to comply with the Sunshine Act. Reprints Desk Reprints Desk s Sunshine eprints solution records the delivery of each eprint to the healthcare professional, capturing name, state, license number and unit cost. It is an extension of Reprint Desk s online reprint ordering and publisher licensing service and is available across multiple platforms. 7 Dynamic Marketing Solutions Cloud Marketing Platform for Marketing Materials Supply Chain: This Cloud Marketing Platform solution offers a suite of technologies, print production and fulfilment services that automates many of the processes related to the procurement, management and distribution of marketing materials. It does not eliminate print costs but offers a central repository for digital versions of all a company s marketing materials, providing opportunities to reduce costs and obsolescence waste, and improve marketing effectiveness. 8 4. Omnidox from Box-it - http://www.boxit.co.uk/digital-document-management.asp 5. Huddle www.huddle.com 6. Elsevier reprints and the Sunshine Act - http://reprints.elsevier.com/commons/pdf/sunshineact.pdf 7. Reprints Desk Sunshine eprints SaaS - http://www2.reprintsdesk.com/news/pressreleasedetail.aspx?prid=116 8. http://dymasys.com/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2012/11/introductiontocloudmarketingplatform1.pdf
RJS Software Solutions Document Management in the Cloud. WebDocs is a document management solution that helps to eliminate paper by digitally managing, storing and distributing key business content. The software is browser based, allowing any time, anywhere access, with security features that log all document activity and restrict access to authorised users. 9 Sheridan M3 Mobile Reprints. Sheridan M3 Monitoring System delivers and monitors articles for viewing on desktop, tablet, and mobile devices. It includes time and usage monitoring, renewal and expiration notifications and a publisher reporting portal. 10 Microsoft SharePoint. A business collaboration platform to enable secure document sharing, with customisable retention and auditing capabilities, expiration periods and access rights. Can be integrated with financial and customer relationship management systems. 11 SalesForce1 Sales Cloud. Uses mobile devices to log calls, respond to leads and collaborate across sales teams, and includes a dashboard providing a real-time picture of the business, and analytics to report on sales, service, and third-party data. 12 All of the above can meet some but not necessarily all of the needs of the pharmaceutical industry, which in summary are: Single platform to distribute and manage eprints and marketing documents Full compliance with copyright, publisher licensing, Sunshine Act and internal compliance requirements Full reporting of documents accessed, distributed by and to whom, value (where applicable) Reduced costs for print and distribution Ease of use Capable of integration with existing marketing and customer relationship management systems Demonstrable ROI 9. http://www.rjssoftware.com/products/distribute/ 10. http://www.sheridan.com/products-services/article-reprints-eprints/sheridan-m3-mobile-eprints 11. http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/business/products/sharepoint-2013 12. http://www.salesforce.com/uk/?ir=1
Paper to Digital Migration in Sales and Other Environments HME-Tangent90 - Vendit/DelegateBag DelegateBag from Tangent90 can centralise all types of distribution involving documents of any kind. Delegates at meetings or events will no longer need to carry a cumbersome bag full of documents and information because it can all be held in the Cloud on their mobile device using a free-to-download APP that features a simple user interface and centralises, manages and files all their documents: marketing collateral, training notes, academic research, agendas in fact anything that would normally be printed. Vendit TM offers a unique document library, designed for the pharmaceutical industry, that enables the distribution of eprints, detail aids, and other marketing materials that can be used at congresses, or in call. It also provides full tracking, with publisher licensing, Sunshine Act and internal and regulatory compliance as standard. Evaluation criteria A report from Gartner Research, Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Content Management (ECM) offers not only an overview of the key players in the ECM market, but also and more importantly, a comprehensive description of evaluation and selection criteria when selecting a partner to provide such a service. 13 These include everything from the core goods and services offered by the vendor, to viability, price, market responsiveness, vision and innovation. Conclusions The meetings and congress market has grown exponentially over the last 50 years, and with it, the demand for scientific and clinical paper reprints (and eprints!), and this growth seems set to continue into the next 50 years. The market is also likely to expand as virtual conferences and online conventions are adopted by businesses looking to improve their ROI. For the pharmaceutical industry, a platform is needed to distribute and manage documents whether an article reprinted from a learned journal or a detail aid for a new product launch both to reduce the costs of printing and distributing paper documents, and to ensure that marketers know what documents have been provided, to whom and their value. The Sunshine Act reinforces the need for a compliance-enabling software solution, and if this can also capture valuable data on downloads and user information, if would offer significant marketing advantages. 13. Gartner ECM research - http://www.gartner.com/technology/reprints.do?id=1-1kqf4rl&ct=130924&st=sg TM www.vendit-now.com limited Hersham Place Technology Park, Molesey Road, Hersham, Surrey KT12 4RS Tel +44 (0)1932 355399 info@gemhme.com www.gemhme.com Pegasus Court, 27 Herschel Street, Slough, Berkshire SL1 1PA Tel +44 (0)1753 822922 hello@tangent90.co.uk www.tangent90.co.uk