The 2006 Product Management Today Team Awards.

The challenges to pharmaceutical marketing teams are many: harmonizing communications between the marketing and product development teams; differentiating between competing products; addressing sensitive, yet important, health issues; branching out a message in an increasingly diffuse and multichanneled world; and dealing with cumbersome regulatory issues. They attempt to do this while trying to reach audiences with different needs: patients, physicians, pharmacists, and others, all with different ways of accessing information. The teams which manage to do all this employ a combination of diplomacy, technological know-how, and market knowledge.

We are proud to present the fifth annual PRODUCT MANAGEMENT TODAY TEAM Award winners. Our panel of judges had difficulty in choosing just two winners, Gold and Silver, in the categories of Professional Marketing, Consumer Marketing, and Managed Care Marketing.

The essays published on the following pages were submitted in the nomination process for the PMT TEAM Awards. They convey the challenges each team faced, along with their innovative responses. Whether it was an entirely new campaign, keeping a flagship product ahead of its generic competition, or bringing back a product that was actually recalled from market, these teams rose to the challenge.

Our Gold Award winner in Professional Marketing managed to grow a billion-dollar brand by 10% with integrated, interteam strategies; the top vote-getter in Consumer Marketing took on generic competitors and confidently entered the bilingual market to keep a flagship brand at the top; and the Gold standard in Managed Care was set by an agency that addressed a specialized audience--long-distance truckers--in an effective and creative way.

Please join PRODUCTMANAGEMENT TODAY in congratulating the Genentech Herceptin, Biogen Tysabri, AstraZeneca Nexium, Gilead Stop Hep B, Novartis Blood Pressure Downshift, and Boehringer Ingelheim Pathways for Performance teams. We also would like to thank all the brand teams and their agencies who submitted entries.

Gold Award Winner: Professional Marketing

The Herceptin Brand Team

Genentech

The Herceptin (trastuzumab) brand team is an outstanding model of strategic planning, teamwork, and innovation in health care marketing. Their collaborative approach is apparent both in the team and in their interactions with all members of their extended team. The brand team demonstrates an inclusive decision-making style and a respect for differences of opinion that encourages healthy discussion and progressive thinking. When dealing with their extended team--be it other departments in the company, such as medical, regulatory, or sales, or external agencies and vendors--they foster a sense of true partnership. Since they welcome input from all sources, their internal and external partners are dedicated to the brand and committed to going the extra mile to create a superior final product. In the end, these efforts have enabled the team to implement programs that have steadily improved the amount and duration of product usage in one indication, even as they were actively planning the product's imminent launch in a second indication.

The brand team's determination to continue to grow usage in the existing indication, team-oriented philosophy, and encouragement of innovative approaches recently led to a novel and valuable sales training initiative. The team is attuned to the voice of the salesforce, and became quickly aware that they were facing serious obstacles in engaging physicians in relevant discussions about key product messages, in part because physicians were focused primarily on the data in the upcoming indication, which the field could not discuss. The brand team was committed to responding effectively to this challenge. After observing some of the sales interactions first-hand and speaking with several members of sales management, the team conveyed the challenges that they were facing to an external agency and charged them with finding a solution. Over the ensuing weeks, the brand team and agency met multiple times with key stakeholders, fleshing out the shape of the resulting sales training instrument and incorporating input from many disciplines--including medical, many levels of sales, and sales training. These multilateral discussions continued throughout the development process and also helped prime the field to embrace the tool as "self-created" when it was introduced. The initiative was ultimately accepted as user friendly, accurate, and effective in helping the field continue dialogue in the existing indication.

In this way, the brand team kept product knowledge high for both the field and target physicians, facilitating the eventual transition to messages in the new indication.

At the same time, the brand team was working tirelessly to prepare for the launch of the new indication. Even before the application was submitted, they had completed a full range of research, and initiated development of pieces to target physicians, nurses, and patients. Before the approval of the new indication, they worked closely with their internal and external partners to ensure that pieces were at a high state of finish and provisionally approved. Further, they coordinated a schedule for immediate internal reviews and approvals of pieces at final labeling and again upon receipt of Division of Drug Marketing, Advertising, and Communications comments, paving the way for a rapid and straightforward roll-out of all materials.

The forethought that these practices demonstrate and the inclusiveness of the processes undertaken to complete them typify the style of the Herceptin brand team--a style that substantially contributes to their ongoing success.

The efforts of the brand team resulted in a 10% sales increase over plan in the first quarter of 2006. The plan was forecasted at $1.2 billion.

Herceptin[R] trastuzumab

THE HERCEPTIN BRAND TEAM

Senior Director Steve Lo

Group Product Manager Brett Villagrand

Senior Product Manager Brandon Kotaneimi

Product Manager Darren Meekins

Product Manager Michael Penn

Silver Award Winner: Professional Marketing

The Tysabri Brand Team

Biogen Idec

Tysabri (natalizumab) is the first monoclonal antibody approved for the treatment of relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (MS). Not only is Tysabri the first of a new class, one-year clinical trial results demonstrated a new level of efficacy in terms of relapse reduction (66% relative reduction in relapse versus placebo). Owing to its unprecedented efficacy, Tysabri received accelerated approval from the FDA in November 2004. It was expected to revolutionize the treatment of MS and revitalize the lives of thousands of patients with MS.

However, just months after launch in early 2005, three patients in Tysabri clinical trials were diagnosed with a rare viral brain infection known as progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML). Two of the infections resulted in death. Patient safety was a primary concern, so Biogen Idec and Elan Pharmaceuticals, Inc. acted quickly to voluntarily withdraw Tysabri from the market. Although it was the only ethical decision the companies could make, it was still a major blow to the hopes of patients who had already begun to experience the benefits of Tysabri.

The team now had a new challenge: Biogen Idec and Elan were committed to bringing Tysabri back to market. Could the Tysabri product management team find a way to do it? Returning to market would be a historic undertaking. Previously, only one other product (Lotronex [alosetron]) had been able to return to market postwithdrawal. Bringing Tysabri back to market was more than just a corporate imperative. As evidenced by the thousands of calls to Biogen Idec customer service and the heartbreaking testimony of patients at the FDA Advisory Committee meeting, it was an imperative set and enforced by patients suffering with MS.

From the beginning of the process, it was clear that the return of Tysabri would require a Risk Minimization Action Plan (RiskMAP). It just was not clear what form that RiskMAP would take. Not only would it have to be approved by the FDA, a RiskMAP must also meet the needs of the physicians, pharmacies, infusion centers, and patients who are implementing it. Therefore, in addition to partnering with the FDA, the product management team collaborated with patients, physicians, and infusion centers to carefully craft a program that would make Tysabri available to the appropriate patients without unduly burdening health care providers.

It was a process that required clear lines of communication to be open among all stakeholders at all times. Insights could be discovered within days; new versions of forms that incorporated those insights were sometimes needed within hours. It took months of negotiation, consultation, and revision to get it right for everyone involved. The Tysabri Outreach: Unified Commitment to Health (TOUCH) Prescribing Program emerged, and with it, the real possibility that Tysabri might return to market.

In March 2006, after two days of impassioned testimony by MS experts, patients with MS, and representatives from Biogen Idec and Elan Pharmaceuticals, Inc., the FDA Advisory Committee voted unanimously to recommend that Tysabri be reapproved for the treatment of MS. In addition, two-year study data now showed further benefits with Tysabri: a 67% relative reduction in relapse versus placebo and a 42% relative reduction in the risk of disability progression versus placebo.