How quickly did the pharma sector digitize in response to COVID-19, and how is RxS supporting the sector in this regard?

We built our company managing prescription samples, hand delivered or shipped directly to health care provider offices, mostly through on-the-ground sales reps. As you can imagine, our clients and that selling model were immediately impacted by the pandemic. Sales representatives could not go to HCP offices. For many brands, there were months when prescriber engagement activities simply stopped while digital operations were spun up and, in many cases, reluctantly embraced. Tele-health tactics gained momentum and our clients made their pivot, like other industries, to fully remote operations. RxS, with our technology-forward approach, was prepared for the shift.

As the pandemic continued, digital platforms, like those we offer, became the tool of choice for prescriber engagement. For approximately nine months, sales reps became virtual agents and, interestingly, virtual engagement with doctors’ offices continues to be a large part of the prescriber marketing solution set.

Can you elaborate on RxS’ new user-centric web portal?

The mission behind all our digital platforms is to enable engagement, whether that engagement is between life sciences brands and their customers, sales reps and the doctors in their territories, or patients and their therapies. From the beginning, I tasked our digital marketing team to build a navigation framework that serves the needs of the visitor. To that end, the portal breaks out each component of life-science marketing and compliance with descriptions of desired outcomes and potential regulatory pitfalls.

Can you elaborate on RxS’ data processing practices and how the company turns big data into actionable information in a timely fashion?

We process data in near real-time using advanced technologies and AI to identify and address anomalies. High-quality data, like the assets we manage on behalf of our clients, facilitates business success by enabling faster decision making — so it must be right and it must be current. Our analytics tell the whole story about the connection between sales representatives and their assigned providers, and between those providers and our client brands.

Which of RxS’ services and tools are in highest demand and driving growth for the company?

Our non-personal engagement offerings are in high demand right now.

On the services side of the business, our healthcare dedicated contact center services have garnered a lot of interest. RxS Engage is staffed with pharmaceutical sales representatives, customer care agents, and patient services representatives. We support every phase of the product lifecycle and provide a comprehensive suite of reporting and interactive dashboards. Because these programs produce quantifiable results and positive returns on investment, they are a good bet as doctor offices consider their sales call policies.

Our digital engagement platforms, TeleTargetRx and SampleCentral, have also seen a solid uptick in demand. TeleTargetRx is our multi-channel inside sales engine – a healthcare-dedicated contact center CRM. It integrates with customer preferencing and campaign status data, enabling informed conversations that add value for HCPs and drive sales. SampleCentral, our HCP engagement portal, provides an intuitive, ecommerce-like sample shopping experience for healthcare providers. It engages them with specialized messaging, a centralized dashboard, and allocation management.

What marketing advice would you give companies currently trying to reach their clients?

The need to interact digitally has not only forced a change to the way brands want to interact with their healthcare provider customers, but also the way those customers wish to be engaged. The landscape has irreversibly gone digital, and the number of healthcare providers resisting that reality is dwindling.

What is RxS’ vision and objectives for 2022 and beyond?

Our management team is betting on pharmaceutical brands stepping up their efforts to get closer to their patient-customer and their caregivers. To address that trend, we recently announced our expansion into the patient care arena with PatientCentral, a technology-enabled service that provides brands and manufacturers a single point of contact for their patients and patient caregivers.

The mission of PatientCentral is to empower brands to positively affect patient journeys and outcomes. It works through customer education and support, benefits investigation, prior authorization processing, co-pay assistance, and pharmacy triage. The RxS patient care team supplies individualized support, develops caring relationships, and ensures consistency while RxS systems track, coordinate, and report the activity of dispensing pharmacies.

The experience we have gained through our healthcare dedicated contact center, RxS Engage, makes us uniquely capable of helping patients and caregivers on their treatment journey.